Cécile Pillon-Hue, Author at OURs - The Observatory of the Universality of Rights

Dominican Republic’s top court reinstates total abortion ban

BOGOTA, Dec 4 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A decision by the Dominican Republic’s constitutional court to reinstate a total ban on abortion is putting women’s lives at risk, rights groups said.

Reforms last year to amend the country’s criminal code to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, a deformed foetus or when a woman’s life is in danger, were passed by congress and approved by President Danilo Medina.

The reforms, a result of years of debate over the abortion ban in the predominantly Catholic and socially conservative Caribbean country, were set to take effect on Dec. 27.

But after an appeal by religious and conservative groups who said the country’s laws and constitution must protect the rights of an unborn child at all costs, the court on Wednesday ruled changes to the criminal code dating back to 1884 were unconstitutional.

“This decision takes women’s and girls’ human rights back to the 19th century,” Erika Guevara, Americas director at Amnesty International, said in a statement on Thursday.

“Its impact will be catastrophic for women and girls in the Dominican Republic who will continue to be criminalised, stigmatised and forced to seek out unsafe abortions because they are denied access to safe and legal medical treatment.”

Bishops from the country’s influential Roman Catholic Church have publicly criticised moves to overturn the abortion ban.

Rights groups say blanket bans on abortion are a leading cause of maternal mortality because they force women to undergo dangerous backstreet abortions.

By Anastasia Moloney

Read the full article from the Thomson Reuters Foundation

Young Gambian Woman (photo: Allan Hopkins)

The Gambia bans female genital mutilation

President Yahya Jammeh outlaws practice that affects three-quarters of women in west African country.

The Gambia has announced it will ban female genital mutilation (FGM) after the Guardian launched a global campaign to end the practice.

The president, Yahya Jammeh, said last night that the controversial surgical intervention would be outlawed. He said the ban would come into effect immediately, though it was not clear when the government would draft legislation to enforce it.

FGM involves cutting female genitalia – often when girls are young – to remove their labia and clitoris, which often leads to lifelong health complications, including bleeding, infections, vaginal pain and infertility. More than 130 million women worldwide are subjected to the procedure in Africa and the Middle East.

The practice is widespread in many African countries, including the Gambia, where 76% of females have been subjected to it. The age at which FGM takes place in the Gambia is not recorded, but it is reported that the trend of practicing FGM on infant girls is increasing. By the age of 14, 56% of female children in the country have had the procedure.

By Kate Lyons
Read the full article on The Guardian website

Pernicious work of World Congress of Families fuels anti-LGBTQ sentiment

The global influence of a controversial Christian coalition poses a serious threat to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.

November has brought rough times for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights. First, voters in Houston, Texas rejected the city’s equal rights ordinance, which would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Then lawmakers in Russia presented a draft bill that would criminalise any public displays of affection that don’t conform to “traditional sexual relations”. Russia had already banned the promotion of homosexuality in 2013, but apparently this didn’t sufficiently suppress the LGBTQ community.

In both cases, support for the reactionary initiatives was driven, in part, by activists deep in the US heartland. The World Congress of Families (WCF), based in Rockford, Illinois, is an international network of socially conservative activists and NGOs that has been active since 1997. Its organisational partners, which span six continents, work in areas ranging from grassroots counselling to direct lobbying of parliamentarians.

By Gillian Kane and Cole Parke

Read the full article from The Guardian website

New EU accession reports: LGBTI rights in the Western Balkans and Turkey

Tuesday, the European Commission’s published its annual progress reports on accession states’ progress towards EU Membership. The reports include important and extensive information on the situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in those 7 countries.

The European Commissioner responsible for Enlargement, Johannes Hahn, presented the 2015 progress reports to the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In his speech the Commissioner emphasised that the reports have “a strong focus on fundamental rights, including freedom of expression and fighting discrimination, notably against the LGBTI community and Roma”.

LGBTI content of the reports

The reports show that LGBTI people continue to face discrimination, threats and violence in the Western Balkans and Turkey. This is a consequence of both a lack of anti-discrimination and hate crime legislation, as in Turkey and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and a lack of effective implementation and prosecution of perpetrators, as is observed in the other four countries.

Turkey is particularly singled out for its high number of hate crimes, attacks and murders of transgender persons.

Successful prides in Albania, Kosovo and Serbia were welcomed, whereas Montenegro and Turkey were condemned for the ban of the Nikšić Pride and police violence against Istanbul Pride.

Concerning legal gender recognition, the report on Montenegro welcomes the adoption of a new protocal for legal gender recognition, whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are criticized for the absence of such procedures. Turkey is criticized for the excessive requirements for gender recognition.

European Parliament reacts

Ulrike Lunacek MEP, Co-President of the Intergroup on LGBTI Rights and Rapporteur for Kosovo, commented: “While I am very glad to see that many governments of accession states are improving the legal situation for their LGBTI citizens, we cannot set aside that some countries are going back or standing still, rather than moving forward. Regrettably, implementation is lagging behind in all countries.”

“The police violence against Istanbul Pride is a sad example of this, as is the complete lack of progress on anti-discrimination legislation in Macedonia and Turkey. The European Parliament will take this up extensively in our own reports.”

Daniele Viotti MEP, Co-President of the Intergroup on LGBTI Rights, added: “We are a union built on values of democracy and human rights. However, many LGBTI people in South Eastern Europe still face discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

“In this regard, I am very pleased to see that the Commission continues to put a strong emphasis on the rights of LGBTI people throughout its accession reports. It shows that the EU takes its commitments to human rights seriously.”

Article originally published by the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights

Read more:

Demonstration for the Health of the Mother, May 28 2007 (photo: Sven Hansen)

Commission on Human Rights reprimands Nicaragua for continued abortion ban

Criminalization of abortion denies young sexual violence victims access to life-saving care.

Years of advocacy by Ipas and partners in Central America paid off last month when leaders of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a strongly worded reprimand to the Nicaraguan government for its continued violation of women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

During a hearing on Oct. 20 focused on Nicaraguan women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights and access to justice, the IACHR special rapporteurs on the rights of women and of children issued a severe reprimand to Nicaragua’s government for its continuation of a total abortion ban, especially when there are high rates of sexual violence against girls in the country. They also admonished Nicaragua’s refusal to recognize claims of unconstitutionality brought against the ban since 2007 (the ban was enacted in 2006), and its refusal to receive a country visit by IACHR members to assess the status of women’s human rights in Nicaragua firsthand.

Ipas Central America presented new statistics on sexual violence in the country that show how the abortion ban disproportionately harms young women. Fully 83 percent of sexual violence victims are age 16 or younger in Nicaragua, and they face a high risk of unwanted pregnancy—and the possibility of resorting to unsafe, clandestine abortions—as a result.

“We are encouraged by the commission’s strong statements in support of women’s and girls’ right to safe, legal abortion in Nicaragua, including victims of sexual violence,” says Ipas Central America Policy Advisor Mayte Ochoa. “Along with our partners, Ipas has been presenting to the commission for years on the terrible rates of sexual violence—and the lack of safe, legal abortion services—that women face in this country.”

Ipas Central America has been working with the IACHR since 2007 to raise awareness of women’s human rights violations in Nicaragua, and has also worked with partners in El Salvador like the Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del Aborto (Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion) to advocate against the total abortion ban in that country. As a result of these efforts, in the past five years the commission has agreed to hear the cases of three specific women denied life-saving health care and/or imprisoned due to these abortion bans, and the commission’s statements and calls to action are now escalating as the governments of both countries continue to resist appeals for legal change.

“The IACHR is increasingly invested in tackling issues of women’s sexual and reproductive rights,” Ochoa says. “We’re grateful they’ve been listening to our ongoing request to address these urgent topics directly—and we hope for a prompt response from the Nicaraguan government.”

Another hearing before the IACHR in October focused on the harmful effects of El Salvador’s total abortion ban.

Learn about Ipas’s previous (2013) presentation before the IACHR: “Inter-American Human Rights Commission holds landmark hearings on abortion laws in Latin America.”

For more information, contact media@ipas.org

Article originally published on Ipas website

Equality advocates cannot welcome NLD victory in Myanmar

Celebrations are under way in Myanmar as Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) are emerging victorious in a national election that is being described as a “dawn of a new era”.

Yet the political leaders, including the so-called icon of Burmese democracy, have colluded in the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya minority, by failing to condemn the wave of persecution and discrimination culminating in the deletion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from the voting register.

“This election can’t be described as either free or fair, because racial discrimination – the prohibition of which is a peremptory norm of international law – was at its heart. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya were deprived of the vote. What kind of democratic society can be built on the exclusion of an entire ethno-religious minority? Not one that the Equal Rights Trust could ever welcome,” said the Trust’s executive director Dimitrina Petrova.

She continued, “Suu Kyi has been urged, at least since 2012, to condemn anti-Rohingya discrimination. But it is clear by now that she has chosen populist power over human rights.”

Article originally published on MalaysiaKini

Ban ‘triple talaq’, says Muslim women’s group

The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) on Friday called for a ban on the “triple talaq” divorce system, saying it was un-Islamic and outlawed in several Muslim countries.

“The Quran gives rights to Muslim women during marriage and does not recognise triple talaq,” the group said in a resolution passed at its ninth annual convention here.

“Yet, this evil practice prevails in India. It should be banned like several Muslim countries (have done),” it added.

At the same time, the gathering rejected the idea of an Uniform Civil Code and called upon the government to initiate urgent measures towards reforms in Muslim personal law.

A BMMA statement quoted co-founder Noorjehan Safia Niaz as saying how India urgently needed a codified Muslim personal law based on the Quranic principles of justice and equality.

Zakia Soman, another co-founder, spoke about how an Uniform Civil Code was not the answer to Muslim womens’ quest for justice.

This can happen only by reform in Muslim personal law where matters such as age of marriage, divorce and polygamy can be regulated, she said.

Read the full article on the Online India website

Modern Orthodox Judaism says ‘no’ to women rabbis

Women who would be Orthodox rabbis were handed a major setback Friday (Oct. 30) when the highest religious body for Modern Orthodox Jews ruled against their ordination.

The Rabbinical Council of America officially prohibited the ordination of women, or the use of the term “rabbi” or “maharat” for women, in what it described as a direct vote of its membership.

The prohibition comes six years after the founding of a yeshiva, or religious school, for women in New York City. The school, Yeshivat Maharat, has ordained less than a dozen women who use the honorific “maharat” instead of rabbi and has placed graduates and interns at 17 Orthodox synagogues in the U.S. and Canada.

The resolution states, “RCA members with positions in Orthodox institutions may not ordain women into the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title used; or hire or ratify the hiring of a woman into a rabbinic position at an Orthodox institution; or allow a title implying rabbinic ordination to be used by a teacher” in an Orthodox institution.

The RCA is made up of more than 1,000 Orthodox rabbis — all men — in 14 countries in North and South America and Israel. Its members are mostly Modern Orthodox Jews who integrate traditional Jewish practices and beliefs while engaging with the secular world. About 10 percent of American Jews consider themselves Orthodox.

By Kimberly Winston
Read the full article from the RNS website

Indonesia: Aceh Province Law Expands Caning Punishment to Adultery and Homosexual Acts

A provincial law on criminal offenses under Sharia law, passed in 2014, came into effect on October 23, 2015, in Indonesia’s Aceh Province, the only part of the country that enforces Islamic Sharia law.

(Aceh Regulation No. 6, 2014, Aceh government website (Oct. 22, 2014).)

The local regulation prescribes a punishment of 100 strokes of a cane for adultery, public displays of affection by unmarried couples, or any homosexual act. The regulation applies to local residents and to foreigners in the province. (Ashley Hogan, Indonesia’s Aceh Province Begins to Enforce Anti-Gay Law, PAPER CHASE (Oct. 23, 2015); Indonesia’s Aceh Introduces Strict Anti-Gay Law, BBC NEWS (Oct. 23, 2015); Reza Munawir, Indonesia’s Aceh Province Enacts Islamic Criminal Code, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Oct. 24, 2015).) The canings will be public, reportedly designed to shame those punished. (Munawir, supra.)

The regulation, the Aceh Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun Jinayat), adds to the number of offenses for which caning is a punishment in Aceh. The offenses punished that way under previous provincial regulations include gambling, consumption of alcohol, and fraternizing with the opposite sex outside of marriage. According to Syahrizal Abbas, the Head of the Department of Islamic Sharia of Aceh, the law does not violate the human rights of gay individuals because they can live together as long as there is no sexual relationship. He explained that “[i]t is forbidden because in the sharia context, the act is vile. … It brings [an] unhealthy psychological impact to human development, and it will affect the community.” (Id.; Press Release, Amnesty International, ASA 21/2726/2015, Indonesia: Repeal or Revise All Provisions in the New Aceh Islamic Criminal Code that Violate Human Rights (Oct. 23, 2015) (click on link to download text in pdf).)

Other Sharia-influenced regulations in the province include requirements that boys and girls be educated separately and that Muslim women wear a hijab (a scarf that covers the hair but not the face) and not straddle a motorcycle when riding with a driver. (Id.) Since June 2015, under an order from the mayor of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, restaurants, sports venues, Internet cafes, and tourist attractions in the city are forbidden to host or serve women after 11:00 p.m., unless those women are accompanied by a male relative. (Constance Johnson, Indonesia: Curfew for Women in Provincial Capital, GLOBAL LEGAL MONITOR (June 16, 2015).)

By Constance Johnson
Read the full article on the website of the Library of Congress

Secretary General Receives Foreign Minister of Uruguay in 2015 (photo: Maria Patricia Leiva/OAS)

Organization of American States’ new leader calls for safe, legal abortion in Latin America

The recently appointed Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, has clearly positioned himself as an advocate for safe, legal abortion and has called for the repeal of punitive abortion laws across Latin America and the Caribbean.

In his September 27 remarks at the Global Leaders Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, Almagro said “the Americas continue to have some of the most restrictive laws regarding sexual and reproductive rights and freedoms, and that reality has to change. Thousands and thousands of women die from illegal abortions every year in the Americas.” In Nicaragua and El Salvador, where Ipas works, abortion is banned completely.

“We have to fix this kind of genocide,” he said, emphasizing that progress on other issues of women’s equality such as poverty, employment and political participation cannot be addressed until women’s basic human rights to life and health are fulfilled.

Almagro joins a growing field of regional leaders calling for the repeal of criminal abortion laws. Advocates for women’s rights in the Americas hope this trend will build an environment that supports policy and law change to increase women’s access to safe abortion.

Such change is needed for the region to fulfill its commitments to the Montevideo Consensus, which calls for securing the sexual and reproductive rights and health of all people, without discrimination based on sex, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity, among other issues. In addition, nations across Latin America and the Caribbean must address unsafe abortion in order to achieve the new Sustainable Development Goals related to maternal health and gender equality.

“Almagro’s remarks not only support advocacy to repeal abortion bans in countries like Nicaragua, Chile and El Salvador, but also highlight the fact that access to safe and legal abortion in the region is key to achieving social justice and gender equality as a foundation of women’s and girls’ human rights,” says Cecilia Espinoza, Ipas youth and policy advisor.