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UNFPA GLOBAL POPULATION POLICY UPDATE
Issue 7 - August 19 2003
Following the International Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation
of the ICPD Programme of Action (21-22 November 2002, Ottawa), UNFPA continues
to highlight worldwide events pertaining to the creation of an enabling environment
for ICPD implementation at the national level. This issue of the newsletter
includes laws and policies relating to sexual and reproductive health/rights
and gender issues that were recently enacted or are being deliberated in
the African Union, Chad and Mexico.
On 11 July 2003, the African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights
of Women in Africa, a supplement to 1981’s African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Protocol, which will take effect once it has been ratified
by fifteen African States, provides broad protection for African women’s
human rights. The Protocol’s extensive guarantees include a provision
requiring States to “ensure that the right to health of women, including
sexual and reproductive health, is respected and promoted.” Specific
rights include the freedom to: control one’s fertility; determine the number
and spacing of one’s children; choose any method of contraception; protect
oneself and be protected against sexually transmitted infections, including
HIV/AIDS; have access to family planning education; and receive information
about one’s health status and the health status of one’s partner. Under
the Protocol, States are called upon to provide adequate, affordable and
accessible health services. They must establish or strengthen pre-natal,
delivery and post-natal health and nutritional services for women.
States must also protect women’s reproductive rights by authorizing abortion
in cases of sexual assault, rape and incest, and where the continued pregnancy
endangers the mental and physical health of a woman or the life of the woman
or the fetus. The Protocol calls upon States to “prohibit and condemn”
harmful practices negatively affecting women’s human rights, including female
genital cutting. It guarantees women’s right to consent to marriage
and sets the minimum age of marriage at 18. Among other provisions,
the Protocol calls upon States to protect women during armed conflicts, ensure
women’s access to food and adequate housing, eliminate discrimination against
women in accessing education, promote equality in the workplace and guarantee
women’s right to inherit property.
On 15 April 2002, the Republic of Chad adopted Law No. 66/PR/2002
on the Promotion of Reproductive Health. The Law incorporates the broad
concept of reproductive health affirmed in Paragraph 7.2 of the Cairo Programme
of Action. It guarantees enjoyment of several basic reproductive rights,
including the right to non-discrimination on the basis of age, sex, financial
means, religion, ethnicity, marital status or any other grounds; free choice
in matters of marriage and family; independent decision-making regarding
reproductive health and the number and spacing of one’s children; access
to information and education on family planning methods; access to safe,
effective and affordable local health care services of the highest caliber;
and freedom from harmful practices, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment, particularly with regard to a person’s reproductive organs.
The latter protection specifies that harmful traditional practices, including
female genital cutting and early marriage, and all forms of aggression, including
domestic violence and sexual cruelty, are prohibited. The Law obligates
all individuals to contribute to the well-being of those in their care.
It places responsibility for implementation of the right to reproductive
health with the State, the decentralized local authorities and private individuals
through their political representatives. Other provisions relate to
reproductive health care personnel and the professional norms regulating
their work.
The Law lists the following interventions as “reproductive health services”:
all services related to family planning, including outreach, education, research
and distribution of contraceptive methods; pre-natal, delivery and post-natal
care; prevention and treatment of sterility, infertility and impotence; prevention
of abortion and care for its complications; reproductive tract disorders;
and the prevention and care of sexually transmitted infections, including
HIV/AIDS. Individuals living with HIV/AIDS are entitled to basic care
and are guaranteed confidentiality. According to the Law, willful transmission
of HIV/AIDS is a crime. The Law rejects abortion as a family planning
method, but authorizes its practice when a pregnancy threatens the life or
health of a woman and when the fetus has been diagnosed with a grave disorder.
Pregnancy termination on authorized grounds requires approval from a medical
council following notice to a judge. The Law also authorizes care for
assisted reproduction.
On 16 December 2002, the Human Rights Commission of Mexico issued Recommendation
No. 4 on administrative practices that violate the human rights of indigenous
peoples. This Recommendation stems from the Human Rights Commission’s
conclusion that indigenous peoples were having their reproductive rights
violated with respect to free and informed consent on family planning methods.
Indigenous peoples were threatened with loss of government benefits if they
did not adopt specific contraceptive measures. They were offered economic
rewards for adopting these measures, and were subjected to contraceptive
measures either without consenting or without being informed of the alternatives
and benefits, risks and side effects to such measures. The Commission
recommended: 1) that health authorities consider equality of gender and indigenous
customs in implementing measures to facilitate, guarantee and respect the
rights of family planning users to free choice and informed consent; 2) the
adoption of administrative measures to formulate and disseminate clear and
accurate information materials in indigenous languages that help rural medical
services explain sexual and reproductive rights; 3) that health personnel
certify that no coercion or concealment of information has been employed
in guiding and counseling indigenous peoples about family planning methods
and that the acceptance of these methods occasions no reward; and 4) that
medical personnel training reinforce human rights and examine indigenous
cultural and social characteristics to improve the treatment, quality of
services offered and respect for the dignity of indigenous family planning
users. The Recommendation requests various authorities to provide evidence
of compliance with the specific recommendations within 30 days of its issuance.
See: http://www.gobernacion.gob.mx/dof/2002/diciembre/dof_26-12-2002.pdf
This newsletter is issued by the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) in its capacity as secretariat for the International
Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme
of Action (November 2002, Ottawa, Canada). These dispatches are intended
to highlight important developments taking place around the world so that
parliamentarians can be kept informed of and learn from the successes, setbacks
and challenges encountered by their fellow parliamentarians in other countries
and regions in their efforts to promote the implementation of the Programme
of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (September
1994, Cairo, Egypt). It should be noted that UNFPA does not necessarily
endorse all of the policies described in this newsletter.
Thanks to Center for Reproductive Rights and Harvard University School of
Public Health for their contributions to the content of this newsletter.
Please send mailing list update information to Diego Hadis at hadis@unfpa.org or Dave Parks at parks@unfpa.org. If you have any questions
or comments on the content of this newsletter, please contact Harumi Kodama
at kodama@unfpa.org or Stirling Scruggs at
scruggs@unfpa.org.
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