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	Women’s and girls’ reproductive choices must be respected by UN Office for Human Rights   States must ensure the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health for all, including the right to sexual and reproductive health, without discrimination, as well as access to contraceptives, UN experts said. The autonomous decision-making of women and girls must be respected.   Ahead of the World Contraception Day on 26 September and the International Safe Abortion Day on 28 September, the leading human rights experts experts issued the following statement:   “The world has been experiencing promising developments but also important setbacks affecting the right to sexual and reproductive health, including on the right to a safe abortion. Human rights law stipulates that women must be free to decide when to be pregnant, how many children to have, and how to space pregnancies. The full enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health rights is indispensable to women’s and girls’ ability to exercise all other human rights and for the achievement of gender equality. Laws and policies that deny women and girls their sexual and reproductive health rights are inherently discriminatory.   The setbacks experienced during the last years, including legal restrictions on contraceptives, on ideological grounds, together with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, have had negative effects on those in vulnerable situations or those historically subjected to discrimination, in particular girls, Black and Afro-descent women, indigenous women, migrant, refugee and internally displaced women, women living in rural areas, women with disabilities, sexual minority communities, and women living in a persistent state of crisis, among others.   It is crucial to ensure that all women and girls, in all of their diversity and without any discrimination, have adequate access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of contraception of their choice, including modern short-and long-acting contraceptives and other methods such as emergency contraception, as well as any other method to avoid forced pregnancies.   In doing so, States should respect the capacity of women and girls for autonomous decision-making and not limit the access to contraceptives to the obtention of the authorisation of husbands, partners or parents of girls seeking counselling on contraceptives. Further, sexual and reproductive health strategies should take into account the needs of sexual minority communities for whom they are relevant.   States should redouble their efforts to dismantle all the practical barriers due to the lack of official regulations such as conscientious objection and the imposition of a spousal consent requirement, even when not required by law.   By virtue of their due diligence obligation, States are responsible for any acts, including acts of omission that violate these fundamental rights by State and non-State actors. These obligations include the duty to investigate, prosecute and punish such acts.   According to the World Health Organization, between 14,000 and 39,000 maternal deaths per year are caused by the failure to provide safe abortion. If a decisive step is to be made towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality and health and well-being, in particular those aimed at ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health rights and reducing maternal mortality, it is of paramount importance to prevent unwanted pregnancies through access to contraception, safe abortion services and quality post-abortion care.   Women and girls should not be instrumentalised to serve fundamentalist ideologies and populist agendas. Religion and culture should not be misused to discriminate against and further oppress women and girls in a global context of severe backlashes against gender equality. Such access should happen in regular as well as humanitarian settings.   On World Contraception Day and International Safe Abortion Day, we call on States and their institutions to prioritise sexual and reproductive health rights, to adopt legislations, policies and decisions that ensure to women and girls, the full exercise of their right to access sexual and reproductive health services, including safe abortion without fear of being intimidated, stigmatised or criminalised – in line with their international human rights obligations.   We commend the positive steps taken in some countries relating to the constitutional recognition of sexual and reproductive rights and encourage States to follow such promising practices. We also call on States and other stakeholders to ensure women and girls’ participation in decision making and to act at different levels, including the national health system and community levels, to ensure that the right of all women and girls on their territory, without discrimination based on race, religion, or nationality – amongst others, to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including the sexual and reproductive health rights – are fully respected. We hope that States will duly implement the pivotal WHO guidelines on abortion care issued earlier this year.”   http://www.ohchr.org/en/topic/gender-equality-and-womens-rights Visit the related web page
	Leave No Woman Behind by Global Call to Action Against Poverty   Aug. 2021   The COVID-19 pandemic startled the world with its rapid spread and impact. As an X-ray displays illness, COVID-19 has exposed the ugly consequences of existing socio-economic, civil and environmental inequalities affecting women, already subject to various forms of discrimination.   While women in general are facing massive job losses in the informal sector, increased domestic violence, rising poverty, and hunger and inequalities, women with double and multiple discrimination now are confronted with more extreme difficulties – in addition to the deaths and illness which have been caused by the virus.   Women from indigenous communities, women from communities that suffer discrimination based on work and descent (DWD), women with disabilities, and older women are all experiencing the ordeals of multiple discrimination, an issue that today requires urgent attention of policy makers.   This global report on Leave No Women Behind (LNWB) highlights the intersectionality of gender with other characteristics – being a member of an indigenous DWD community, being old, being a widow and/or living with disability.   The study consists of four papers. The first is the global overview describing the multiple discrimination and exclusion women from different marginalised groups faced during the pandemic. The second paper describes in detail the inequalities, indignity and violence faced by women from DWD communities across the world.   The third paper sets out the problems of women with disabilities in Africa. And the fourth paper looks at the conditions of women from indigenous communities in Asia who already were not only among the poorest of the poor but were also subject to human rights abuses including violations perpetrated by the state.   The study focuses on the need and the fight for social protection floors, adequately financed and fairly delivered, and the parallel fight against violence against women by both state and non-state actors during the pandemic. The study sets out recommendations for “building forward better”.   We have sought to highlight and give attention to the voices and recommendations of the women, too often marginalised and invisible, to whom his report is dedicated.   The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ugly consequences of existing socio-economic, civil and environmental inequalities affecting women, already subject to various forms of discrimination.   While women in general are facing massive job losses in the informal sector, increased domestic violence, rising poverty, and hunger and inequalities, women with double and multiple discrimination now are confronted with more extreme difficulties – in addition to the deaths and illness which have been caused by the virus.   Women from indigenous communities, women from communities that suffer discrimination based on work and descent (DWD), women with disabilities, and older women are all experiencing the ordeals of multiple discrimination, an issue that today requires urgent attention of policy makers.   In all countries and regions poverty and discrimination interact with each other in a vicious circle, with discrimination intensifying poverty which in turn intensifies exclusion and further discrimination.   Disabilities, old age, widowhood, an ethnic identity, location, a particular occupation or status, such as Dalits in south Asia or similar communities discriminated based on work and descent (DWD), can all combine and intersect to intensify discrimination.   Gender and disability multiply negative impacts – women and girls with disabilities are among those most left behind in terms of health and social care, social protection and services.   The poor have much greater exposure to disease due to inadequate housing and overcrowding, vulnerable working conditions, high levels of air pollution, poor sanitation and water availability and lack of access to education.   Migrant workers as well as all those in informal work situations are particularly affected. In many places, minorities or migrant workers have also been made scapegoats and have been the object of hate speech and threats.   http://gcap.global/news/leave-no-woman-behind-6-part-mini-series-of-publications/ Visit the related web page
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