Declaración del XII Encuentro Internacional de Mujer y Salud

November 3, 2015

Photos available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/produccionesymilagros/sets/72157657988526763; https://www.facebook.com/lorena.espinoza.pena/media_set?set=a.10153724680647650.1073741902.771367649&type=3

23 OCTOBER 2015

We, activists for the health of women, gathered in Dominican Republic from 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States are aware that we live in market societies with a capitalist conception of development, concentrates wealth in few hands and naturalizes the growing inequalities leaving out more than 90% of humanity. Beyond that there are countries that seek to change the dominant model generates violence, injustice and environmental destruction, that is crossed by the patriarchy.

Health as a state of physical, psychological, social and cultural well-being, must be an integral human right, interlinked to the other dimensions of rights. And not be linked to public policies that have helped privatization, business regulation and the protection of the pharmaceutical industry, defense industry, increased market service medical procedures, the medicalization of bodies and treatments encarnización . While access to clean water, sanitation, food, drug availability, access and coverage of health care at all levels and for all people is restricted. Thus, the human right to health has become an unaffordable luxury for most of us, creating conditions that sentence us to disease and death.

The policy linked to religion, drug trafficking and the financial interests of multinationals has weakened and subordinated to the states and governments to these interests. And it has increased the culture of consumerism, unemployment, job insecurity, child labor, exploitation of human beings, including sexual exploitation of children, adolescents and women, and the depletion of natural resources.

All forms of fundamentalism, including religious, are dogmatic expressions which aims to impose a single way of thinking as unquestioned truth about sexual morality and social order aimed at controlling the body and decisions of women in all fields life. They are a perpetuation of patriarchy which hinders any possibility of progress in women’s rights, preventing the autonomy and freedom, including decisions about sexual and reproductive lives. The defense of the secular states is, therefore, fundamental to advance the recognition and respect of the rights of women, of all ages, cultures and conditions condition.

Gender stereotypes, sexual division of labor, the unpaid care laid on the shoulders of women, the wage gap, maternity imposed, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, persecution based on sexual orientation and identity gender, sexual and gender violence, the criminalization of sex workers, the feminization of HIV, the feminization of poverty, racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination and harassment and attacks on defenders human rights are some of the situations that continue violating our status as citizens.

Resources for women, our organizations in the countries called “developing” are becoming scarcer and conditioned to the interests of aid agencies, multilateral agencies and agendas of the funders. This weakens us and away from us to fulfill our mission which is to promote, defend and fully exercise their human rights and strengthen the capacity of citizen enforcement.

We have a right to universal access to education, including comprehensive sexuality education. We are entitled to comprehensive health services, that address all our requirements including sexual and reproductive health in all stages of life. We have the right to decent work, equal wage and social security. We are entitled to a life free of violence and discrimination. We have the right to property, land and to defend it against any attempt to expropriation. To participate in positions of power and decision. We are entitled to free sexuality, without imposition, coercion and violence and to exercise the pleasure when, how and with whom we want. We have the right to a quality life, liberty and autonomy regardless of whether we are adolescents, young or old; indigenous women, Afro, African, poor, disabled, married, single, widowed, with or without children, believers in any religion or atheist, lesbian, transgender, bisexual or heterosexual, living in our country or anywhere in the world .

Therefore we demand that all branches of government and all governments:

Strengthening democracy, fighting corruption and secular state, ensuring an environment conducive to our full participation in all spheres of power environment.
The redistribution of wealth and equal access to the benefits of sustainable development by ensuring the economic empowerment of women
Food sovereignty and the rational and sustainable use of natural resources, with the participation of indigenous peoples, rural and urban populations with special guarantee of participation of women in all economic and development policies.
The respect and the conditions for exercising our economic autonomy, political, sexual, reproductive and cultural mobility that allows us without aggression or violence in the public space and within our families and communities. Stop violence against women.
Ensure peace, social justice and gender through the fulfillment of commitments to the human rights systems with the creation of mechanisms to ensure non-interference of religious and conservative fundamentalist groups. And that States stop subsidizing the churches, and allocate these resources to the health of women.
A broad, comprehensive vision and intersectional policies in health and education where the identity and status of girls, teenagers, young, lesbians, trans, Afro-descendants, indigenous people, migrants, poor recognition and attention requerimentos to a wide diversity of women throughout all stages of life, including care for mental and emotional health.
Eradicating deaths of women due to pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and abortion (maternal mortality) ensuring policy and services that ensure humane care, quality and respectful of our rights. It is an ethical imperative for all nations to ensure universal access to the full range of safe and reliable contraception and the legalization of abortion and assistance to assisted fertilization and humanized birth.
Comprehensive systems of care and welfare for all women and their families.
We demand policies that address the health and nutritional problems such as anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders, which are mainly caused by the beautiful patterns generated by the capitalist system.
Generating reliable statistics and access to information so as to enable monitoring and evaluation of policies against the commitments made by States, which requires having disaggregated by sex, gender, age, race / ethnicity, socio-level data educational and economic, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Incorporate the intercultural dimension and gender equality in public policies, plans, programs, in harmony with the knowledge and ancestral practices of traditional medicine and African descent in each of our countries.

While intending to continue tutelándonos, dominating us or imposing on their beliefs and oppressive policies, know that we are here not only to resist but to continue struggling and articulating all our efforts to achieve peaceful, egalitarian, just, compassionate, free society that respects the rights Humans, we want. For all women, for all peoples and for the conservation of the planet we inhabit. In this 12th International Meeting of the Health of Women we have reaffirmed our commitment to this struggle and will continue to work for it.

Dominican Republic, October 2015.