This is in direct violation of #Uganda’s obligations to ensure non-discrimination, equitable gender inclusion, and respect for human dignity for all people in Africa under the CEDAW, the ICESCR, and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, as well as the Maputo Protocol!
As a vital element of young people’s SRHR, CSE is essential in the prevention, treatment, and care of HIV, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted infections. An enabling environment in schools and communities, especially in poor and rural areas, should be created to ensure young people have access to age and development-appropriate, rights-based, and evidence-based information. When they have the appropriate information, young people develop the life skills to make informed decisions about their bodies and lives, such as having safe sex and healthy relationships that recognize consent and gender equality.
SRHR is an important part of all people’s human rights and development; it is inextricably linked to social justice issues such as poverty and climate crisis, among others; and a crucial part to the fulfillment of universal health coverage. Therefore, the social and economic gaps that hinders the full realization of their sexual and reproductive rights must be addressed through government accountability, including access to innovation and technological opportunities.
The Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR), representing over a thousand organizations and individuals worldwide working towards the realization of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for all, welcomes the priority theme of the Commission on the Status of Women on innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving […]
As a signatory to international human rights treaties including the UN CRC, the Philippine Government committed to ensure the fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights of all especially of adolescents. The UN CRC Concluding Observation is a major win for adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in the country. Our solidarity and commitment to SRHR and children’s rights made all these possible. As SRHR, women’s rights and child rights advocates, we will continue to hold the government accountable to its commitments and monitor its implementation of the UN CRC recommendations and other human rights obligations.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child finished its review of the Philippines and released its Concluding Observations. They considered the issues that we raised in our joint NGO submissions and other interventions and urged the Philippine Government to, among others, ensure adolescents’ access to modern contraception and confidential testing and HIV treatment without parental consent, ensure comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in schools, address sexual violence, and review of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act No. 10354. And for the first time, the UNCRC urges the government to legalise abortion and ensure access to abortion and post-abortion care services for adolescent girls.
Last week, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. addressed the United Nations General Assembly during the High-Level General Debate. Glaringly absent, however, is the purview on gender. He commits to upholding justice, respecting human rights, and maintaining international peace and security, but these are nothing but empty promises if women and girls continue to unjustly face barriers to achieving their human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) particularly the inability to access safe abortion.
The Philippines has one of the most restrictive laws against abortion in the world, without clear exceptions on any grounds. Despite legal restrictions, however, abortions have happened, and no severity of the law can stop them from happening. A thousand die each year attributed to clandestine abortions; this translates to three lives lost every day. Deaths from unsafe abortion complications are one of the leading factors to the country’s high mortality rate. For as long as the proper legal and policy guarantees are not institutionalized, more people will be put to danger.
The Woman’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights joins civil society organisations in pressing for the immediate release of Reina Mae Nasino, a woman human rights defender illegally arrested in November 2019. The decision of the 12th Division of the Philippine Court of Appeals dated August 31 junks the warrants of arrests served on Nasino as […]
