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

Human rights experts issue joint statement on need to address safe, legal abortion in UN 2030 Agenda

Last week, the UN General Assembly adopted its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 global sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as to eradicate poverty, take urgent action on climate change, and promote health and gender equality for global cooperation over the next 15 years.

The SDGs take a multi-sectoral approach to development. Access to safe abortion care can be linked to several 2030 targets within the SDGs such as universal sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality and the SDGs around poverty, education, inequality, economic growth and justice.

However, in a joint statement issued last week, UN and regional human rights experts expressed deep regret that the SDGs do not go far enough. These experts—rapporteurs on specific human rights issues of the UN Human Rights Council, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights—joined together for the first time in making the statement. They stated that criminalization of abortion is discriminatory and called on governments to “remove punitive measures for women who undergo abortion, and at the very minimum, legalize abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the woman or the life of the woman.”

The experts emphasize that sexual and reproductive health and rights are based on universally accepted human rights standards, as codified in international and regional treaties, as well as in international political consensus documents.

“The SDGs are just a starting point,” says Patty Skuster, Senior Policy Advisor at Ipas. “The experts’ statement reinforces that access to safe abortion is an established human right and an international development priority.”
For more information, contact media@ipas.org

Article originally published on Ipas website

Brazil, Peru end partnerships with Presbyterian Church (USA) over gay marriage

In another example of Christian discord over gay inclusion, Presbyterian churches in Brazil and Peru have ended their partnerships with the Presbyterian Church (USA) after the U.S. denomination changed its constitution in March to allow clergy to celebrate same-sex marriages.

The loss of the South American partnerships comes on top of the 50 U.S. congregations that formally split from the 1.8 million-member denomination since the church policy changed, PCUSA officials say.

Mexico stopped partnering with the denomination after it allowed the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians in 2011.

The Rev. Gradye Parsons, the stated clerk of the General Assembly and the highest elected official in the denomination, said the South American churches hold differing views on inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church.

“It’s a continuum of what people think God is calling them to do with LGBT issues,” he said. “Some think they should be loved and changed, and some think they should be loved and accepted.”

By Renee Gadoua
Read the full article from the Deseret News website

Counter-Terrorism Committee: Addressing the Role of Women in Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism

The UN Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda (WPS) has become the dominant discourse framing women’s engagement in international affairs over the past fifteen years.

It has also marshalled the ways in which women are both made visible by and remain invisible in security conversations by key institutional actors such as the United Nations.

In this same period, following the events of 9/11, states have brought new urgency and vibrancy to their action in the realm of counterterrorism. Indeed, creating and bolstering new international security regimes constitutes the bulwark of states’ normative actions in the international sphere. This international security system was ushered in by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 and the creation of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), in conjunction with European Union Regulations on Combatting Terrorism. Both the EU and UN’s approaches had antecedents during prior decades of patchwork multilateral terrorism conventions and resolutions but their scope, content, and institutional power has risen considerably in the world we inhabit after 9/11.

State momentum stemming from the priority accorded to addressing international terrorism is illustrated by both the response of national legal systems and by more concerted efforts to achieve multilateral and multilevel counterterrorism efforts on the international plane. The central institutional legacy of that urgency is the CTC. Yet, by and large, the WPS agenda has been excluded from any meaningful engagement with the CTC since its creation. The result is that the WPS agenda has been not only normatively limited in its reach, but distinctly and institutionally peripheral in some of the key security and conflict discussions of the past decade plus.

By Fionnuala Ní Aoláin
Read the full article on the Just Security website

Burma: Four “Race and Religion Protection Laws” Adopted

Four laws known collectively as the Race and Religion Protection Laws, which were submitted to the Parliament of Burma (Myanmar) in December 2014, were adopted this spring by the Parliament and recently signed by Thein Sein, Burma’s President.

(Myanmar: Parliament Must Reject Discriminatory ‘Race and Religion’ Laws, Amnesty International website (Mar. 3, 2015).)

The Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion, or Ma Ba Tha, which is led by Buddhist monks, supported the adoption of the four laws.” (Id.; Hnin Yadana Zaw, Myanmar’s President Signs Off on Law Seen as Targeting Muslims, REUTERS (Aug. 31, 2015).) By contrast, in the view of Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, the laws “set out the potential for discrimination on religious grounds and pose the possibility for serious communal tension … . Now that these laws are on the books, the concern is how they are implemented and enforced.” (Hnin Yadana Zaw, supra; for an analysis of the four draft laws, see, for example, Myanmar: Parliament Must Reject Discriminatory ‘Race and Religion’ Laws, supra.)

Monogamy Law

Thein Sein signed into law on August 31 monogamy legislation that was adopted by the country’s Parliament on August 21. (Hnin Yadana Zaw, Myanmar’s President Signs Off on Law Seen as Targeting Muslims, REUTERS (Aug. 31, 2015).) The legislation makes it a criminal offense to have more than one spouse or to live with an unmarried partner who is not a spouse. An estimated five percent of Burma’s population is Muslim, and some members of this group reportedly practice polygamy, but the government has denied that the new law targeted Muslims. (Id.)

According to a draft, unofficial English text of the legislation, the Monogamy Law as proposed concerned “all those who are living in Myanmar, Myanmar citizens who live outside of Myanmar, and foreigners who marry Myanmar citizens while living in Myanmar.” (Monogamy Bill (2014), art. 2, ONLINE BURMA/MYANMAR LIBRARY.) The draft states that after the law enters into force, “any marriage between a man and a woman in accordance with any law or any religion or any custom shall be legitimate only if monogamous.” (Id. art. 5.)

One of the provisions in Chapter 3 of the draft law, on “Prohibition on Extramarital Affairs,” prescribes that “any man or woman who is already married with one spouse or more than one spouse in accordance with a law or a religion or a custom, shall not enter, while the original union is still legally recognized, into another marriage with another person or conduct an illegal extramarital affair.” (Id. art. 9.) The same prohibition applies to “any man or woman who is already married in accordance with a law or a religion or a custom.” (Id. art. 10.) Anyone who, while still part of a legally recognized original union, enters into another marriage in contravention of article 9 or 10, will “be deemed to commit the act of polygamy or conjugal infidelity under section 494 of the Penal Code.” (Id. art. 16.)

By Hameema Rahman and Wendy Zeldin

Read the full article on the website of the Library of Congress

More than 90 per cent of Muslim women in India reject the triple talaq and polygamy

A survey of Muslim women by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), put the spotlight on the needs of the muslim woman in India.

In the survey it was found that more than 90 percent of Muslim women in India want the “triple talaq” divorce ritual and polygamy banned from family civil law in the country.

The BMMA said its survey also showed that three quarters of interviewees wanted a ban on child marriage, indicating a need for reforms in the Muslim personal law which governs family-related issues in India.

Activists say the current law discriminates against women and are calling for a well-defined Muslim law that criminalises polygamy, unilateral divorce, child custody and child marriage.

In its statement the BMMA said “It (the survey) suggests that Muslim women are aware of their legal rights and are determined to attain justice in family matters. An overwhelming number of women demand reforms in Muslim personal law as is prevalent in India today,”.
By New Delhi Times Bureau

Read full article on the New Delhi Times website

How the Disingenuous Attacks on Planned Parenthood Hurt Women Around the Globe

Anti-abortion activists in Latin America are using the deceptive Planned Parenthood “investigation” videos as an excuse to attack local family planning organizations.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, abortion is heavily restricted in all but six countries. Of the seven nations in the world that forbid the procedure in all circumstances–including threat to the mother’s life–five are located in Latin America.

Of course, the harsh restrictions don’t stop abortion from happening, and horror stories abound: of 4 million unsafe and illegal abortions occurring per year; of women being killed and mutilated after botched back-alley procedures; of pregnant victims of rape and incest–like, recently, an 11-year-old girl in Paraguay who was raped by her stepfather–being forced to carry their abusers’ children to term.

Since its founding in the 1950s, the International Planned Parenthood Federation Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF-WHR) has been working with local organizations to help women maintain reproductive autonomy despite such draconian laws. IPPF-WHR collaborates with 40 partner organizations in 38 countries throughout the Americas and Caribbean, working to ensure that women can access sexual and reproductive health services. However, because of the recent, deeply disingenuous attacks on Planned Parenthood in America, these international partners have come under fire as well. As anti-abortion groups and politicians rush to malign Planned Parenthood over deceptively edited videos, they’re not merely endangering women’s health in the United States: Their actions are threatening women around the globe.

By Callie Beusman

Read the full article on Broadly website

Myanmar’s Parliament Approves Controversial Interfaith Marriage Law

Lawmakers in Myanmar passed contentious legislation on Tuesday that imposes restrictions on interfaith marriages in the predominantly Buddhist country, despite opposition from rights advocates who say it discriminates against women and Muslims in the conservative, predominantly Buddhist country.

The law requires Buddhist women and men of other faiths to register their intent to marry with local authorities, who will display a public notice of the engagements. Couples can marry only if there are no objections; but if they violate the law, they could face imprisonment.

Critics have argued that the legislation does not apply the law equally to all people and flies in the face of domestic and international human rights standards.

“This kind of law shouldn’t be issued by parliament because it is not an essential law for all ethnic [groups] in Myanmar; it is just a law that discriminates against ethnic people when it comes to religion,” said Zar Talam, an ethnic Chin lawmaker from the Htantlang constituency of Chin state in western Myanmar.

Proponents, however, say the law will protect Buddhist women who marry outside their faith.

“This law was written for Myanmar Buddhist women who marry men from other religions so they have equal rights in marriage, divorce, inheritance and taking care of children, as well as have effective protection,” said Saw Hla Tun, a member of parliament’s Draft Law Committee.

The law is part of a series of four laws on marriage, religion, polygamy, and family planning proposed by a Buddhist organization called the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, which is affiliated with a nationalist Buddhist monk group.

Reported by Win Naung Toe for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Read the full article on the Radio Free Asia website

Some African Countries Are Trying to Use Science to Make Homophobic Laws, Now African Scientists are Pushing Back

Some African countries have tried to use science to justify laws that criminalize homosexuality.

Over the last few years, a number of African countries have passed legislation to outlaw homosexuality, painting it as unnatural and un-African. On June 10, scientists and other academics took a stand against such discriminatory legislation, as Linda Nordling reports for Nature. The Academy of Science of South Africa released a report refuting and condemning the legislation during a recent conference on AIDS research in Durban, South Africa.

The report draws from an array of academic fields, arguing that anti-homosexuality laws have neither a basis in science nor history nor philosophy. The researchers aim to debunk some key misconceptions about homosexuality, namely that it’s “socially contagious,” encourages pedophilia and paves the way for HIV and AIDS. In fact, the researchers conclude that such laws actually make it more difficult to monitor and control sexually transmitted infectious diseases.

To bolster their case, the panel also cites biological evidence for sexual orientation and historical evidence for same sex relationships in Africa dating back to the 19^th century. “There is no basis for the view that homosexuality is ‘un-African’ either in the sense of it being a ‘colonial import’, or on the basis that prevalence of people with same-sex or bisexual orientations is any different in African countries compared to countries on any other continent,” they write. Some of the laws draw on religious and anti-Western sentiment. However, the strong reaction from African scientists is largely due to the fact that in some cases, science has been used to justify some of this legislation.

By Helene Thompson

Read the full article from the Smithsonian website

Georgia: Orthodoxy in the classroom

Georgia’s liberal politicians say only alignment with Europe and the US will allow the country to overcome its post-Soviet past and survive as an independent nation.

But is the country’s anti-Western and increasingly influential Orthodox Church using schools to breed a generation of religious conservatives whose beliefs are more aligned with Vladimir Putin’s Russia than the West?

When 14-year-old Giorgi came home from school on 16 October 2014 in Tbilisi, Georgia, his older brother Dato knew immediately something was wrong. Bruised and battered, Giorgi described how four older boys took turns kicking him in front of other schoolmates. “This wasn’t just a boys’ fight,” Dato says.

Giorgi was beaten because he had called himself an atheist.

Rights groups say this is just one example of growing religious intolerance in Georgia’s state schools, fostered by what they say is a campaign of indoctrination encouraged by the country’s Orthodox Church.

“They told me: ‘You offend our religion, you are an infidel,'” Giorgi says. The school principal confirmed the story, but said the issue has been resolved.

But the brothers, who didn’t want their last name used, say the intimidation has continued, and they are angry the perpetrators have not been punished. The only alternative school is private, they say, and their parents can’t afford it.

School battlegrounds

Dato’s atheism puts him in a minority in Georgia. More than 80% of Georgians call themselves Orthodox, with the young among the most religious.

But the church’s conservative message is increasingly at odds with the country’s liberal, pro-Western direction, which paradoxically most Georgians also support.

Schools have become an ideological battleground.

By Natalia Antelava
Read the full article on the BBC website

The Rise Of Brazil’s Guardians Of The Altar

Social conservatives have taken control of Brazil’s Congress and are trying to reverse marriage equality and other progressive victories.

A group of hard-faced young men marched military style through a cheering crowd, giving straight-armed salutes. “Thank the Lord, we are here today ready for battle, and determined to serve you — We are Gladiators of the Altar,” they declared, in a video that went viral in February.

The video wasn’t a clip from an army training exercise or propaganda for some sort of militia. According to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which posted the video, the Gladiators of the Altar program essentially amounts to a Bible study class for at-risk young men. The video, posted in February by a Universal Church in the northern coastal city of Fortaleza, got around one million views in the 24 hours before the church took it offline, following widespread uproar.

The video caught fire in part because it embodied the ideological battle now playing out in Brazil’s capital. Backed by the country’s rapidly growing evangelical population, a large number of religious conservatives won election in October as part of a broad conservative coalition that now controls Congress. They have taken office bent on reversing recent gains for LGBT rights, including a 2013 decision by a judicial panel that established marriage equality nationwide. Progressives have struggled to draw public attention to the implications of the vote, in part because even President Dilma Rousseff — who supports LGBT rights — courted evangelical support for her reelection.

By J. Lester Feder
Read the full article from BuzzFeed