Isabel Marler, Author at OURs - The Observatory of the Universality of Rights

Scenes from the Opening of the Sixty Third Session of the Commission on the Status of Women held in the General Assembly Hall at United Nations Headquarters on 10 March 2019. Pictured: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women addresses the Commission. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

With friends like these – Reflections on CSW68

The annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the main global policy space for gender equality and the advancement of women’s rights.

Feminists (who can get visas and afford to travel to New York City) from all regions descend on this space to share ideas and research, to influence governments, and to make their voices and perspectives heard at the highest levels. However, more often than not, participation in the CSW leaves many of us with conflicting feelings.

New and old tensions

On the one hand, the reconnection with comrades, colleagues, and friends from around the world is immensely restorative and the ensuing conversations over coffee and terrible sandwiches are filled with commiserations, laughter, and exciting ideas for how we will take down the patriarchy. These are the moments that strengthen the bonds of transnational social movements, expand our understanding of different issues, and spark new initiatives that keep us growing together. On the other hand, the performative speeches by governments of all stripes, the same diplomatic fights over which words will make it into the Agreed Conclusions, and the dog and pony show we put on for donors and potential donors is enough to make even the most optimistic among us overcome with cynicism.

CSW68 was no different on these fronts but what was different this year was that it was happening amidst a live-streamed genocide against Palestinian People perpetrated by the State of Israel and supported by the same Western states that hold themselves up as the guardians of international law, human rights, and gender equality. This made the official speeches in the General Assembly extolling the importance of ‘leaving no one behind’ even more frustrating to listen to and left many with a sense of cognitive dissonance that only adds to the broader crisis of legitimacy within global governance systems.

Not unrelated, what was also different this year was the recurrent theme, in many events, speeches, and hallway conversations among diplomats, donors, and civil society alike, of the “rising anti-rights and anti-gender movements”. For those of us who have been subjected to the vitriol, misogyny, and blatant lies from these movements for a very long time, the harm caused by these actors is not exactly breaking news. However, donors, Western governments’, UN agencies’ and mainstream civil society organizations’ recent enthusiastic, yet superficial, embrace of this phenomenon as the greatest existential threat to gender equality, human rights, and democracy should give feminists pause.

The co-optation of “anti-rights”?

On the surface, we certainly agree that the effective coordination among conservative religious organizations, far-right political actors, anti-queer, anti-abortion and anti-trans groups, and those economically benefiting from the dismantling of human rights infrastructures is a monumental threat. However, a key question must be, why now? Feminists have been researching, documenting, and sounding the alarm about these actors for decades. What is it about this current moment we are living that makes this diagnosis so attractive to self-proclaimed defenders of the international rules-based order? As a microcosm of global policy-making, CSW68 provided a window into three possible interrelated explanations for why the anti-rights and anti-gender discourse is such a hot topic right at the global level right now.

First, deflection. While we are focused on debating language on comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services in UN documents, we are not scrutinizing the ways in which the states that champion these issues in multilateral spaces are failing to deliver basic public health and education services in their own countries and voting against more equitable international financial institutions that would enable low and middle income countries to invest in their own public services. Our dogged focus on advancing normative sexual and reproductive rights language that is disconnected from the reality of peoples’ lives bolsters the argument that human rights are only a Western imperialist tool.

Second, in the polycrisis world in which we are living, many states are looking for ways to justify the forceful defense of their national interests while maintaining the illusion of working for the shared global good. These states are increasingly turning to tactics that encourage classifying different actors as either “good guys” or “bad guys”. These same states are then using their political support for gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights in multilateral spaces as evidence that they are “the good guys”. The recent trend of states adopting feminist foreign policies is illustrative of this approach and also its limitations. When confronted with tensions between feminist principles and military and/or economic interests, as is the case with Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, access to COVID vaccines, or providing flexible funding to autonomous feminist movements, the curtain slips and we see the hollowness of these policies.

Third, the multilateral institutions set up to defend and advance gender equality lack meaningful accountability to feminist movements and are easy targets for those seeking to undermine women’s rights because they do not have adequate funding or political support. The message that feminists receive from these institutions is that we must not make public our very valid concerns about anti-rights and anti-gender actors operating within these very systems because it will jeopardize what little support they do have. These open secrets, far from protecting them, continue to undermine the kind of legitimacy that could gain them political and popular support.

For example, one of the key opening speakers at CSW68 was the current UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, a person who has used her role to promote harmful anti-trans and anti-sex work views that are in contravention to existing human rights standards and has publicly targeted feminist organizations that have opposed her positions. When seeking remedies to address these dangerous actions, we are met with shoulder shrugs and told that we must respect the independence of the system of UN Special Procedures. Another example of this from CSW68 was when a high level UN Women official shared a stage with a very well known actor among the anti-rights and anti-gender movement at an official side event at UN headquarters. A simple Google search could have prevented this from happening and should have been cause for outrage, yet unless you attended the event, you probably didn’t hear about it.

Reclaiming our struggles

All of this presents an interesting opportunity for those of us who have been analyzing and pushing back against anti-rights and anti-gender movements for a very long time. Do we double down on this moment of heightened interest to make more visible the ways in which these actors subvert the universality of human rights? On its own, this strategy is incomplete and risks playing right into the hands of those who oppose gender justice and also those who seek to instrumentalize women’s rights to advance imperialist goals. As feminists with expertise in this area, we must think bigger and more holistically. We must also deepen our analysis of who constitutes the anti-rights movement especially when we witness Western governments blatantly undermining human rights when it suits them.

We cannot allow gender equality, bodily autonomy, and sexual and reproductive rights to be separated from peoples’ lived realities. We must seize the current attention of policy makers and mainstream civil society organizations to meaningfully address the root causes that enable anti-rights actors, whomever they are, to thrive and grow support for a more robust, accountable, and equitable global governance system. Feminism teaches us that we must reject binary approaches to complex social issues, there are no good guys or bad guys, and that we must stay focused on creating, building, and expanding our shared vision for the world where everyone, everywhere is free from oppression.

Meghan Doherty is the Director of Global Policy and Advocacy at Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights and has been fighting for sexual and reproductive rights at local, national and global levels for more than two decades.

#DayOfFamilies: 15 Resources for Progressive Family Advocacy

Today, May 15th, is the International Day of Families. But what do families, human rights and gender justice have to do with one another?

Established principles of international human rights law uphold the rights of all individuals within families to be free of coercion, violence and discrimination; free to found families on an equal basis; and free to become a part of diverse forms of families around the world. Yet today we stand witness to ongoing violations of these intrinsic rights across regions, and the failure of states to ensure these rights and to hold perpetrators accountable.

At the same time, conservative actors are leading the charge at the United Nations and other human rights spaces to undermine and chip away at our rights protections themselves. Ironically, many of these actors use emerging discourses around ‘the family’ to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.

Conservative discourses undermining rights

We are increasingly seeing the spread of a conservative discourse in human rights spaces which seeks to employ the term “family” strategically – to reserve human rights for the few instead of for all, to promote inequality, and to weaken our existing human rights protections.

Regressive actors are collaborating across borders and religions to attack human rights standards with appeals to a narrow and discriminatory conception of ‘the family’ and ‘family values,’ including the “Protection of the Family” resolutions at the United Nations.

Equality in family laws

From country to country, personal status or family laws fail to recognize the diversity of families, and discriminate against women and restrict their rights to family life and other fundamental freedoms.

Not only do these laws continue to grant unequal rights to custody; provide cover for coercion, abuse and sexual violence; and delimit women’s access to money – states continue to attempt to back out of their human rights commitments to change these laws and challenge discriminatory gender stereotypes by reference to national sovereignty, tradition, religion and culture.

Families are diverse

Contrary to the claims of anti-rights actors, and as the human rights framework has recognized time and again, families are diverse and take many different forms around the world. Family has always evolved and today manifests itself in many forms such as nuclear families, single parent families, cross-generational families, families with same-sex parents, childless families, and child-headed families.

The following resources exist to support progressive advocacy on the family which can counteract oppressive anti-rights discourses around family, push the recognition of the diversity of family, and promote equal rights and justice within families.

Please share these with your networks, let us know of your key resources, and tweet using the hashtag #DayOfFamilies

1. Reclaiming Family Values: How to address family in social justice activism

A guide for civil society and activists, especially focussed on Europe. It explains what family equality is, and offers ten strategies to include family in our work through planning, funding, research, communication and messaging, lobbying and advocacy, cross-movement alliances, media work, litigation, working with faith, and engaging with opponents to equality.

2. Key Opposition Discourses

This chapter of the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs) Trends Report 2017 lays out some key discourses employed by anti-rights actors engaging at the UN, including the “Protection of the Family” agenda that functions as a potent umbrella concept housing multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions

3. Lobbying for Faith and Family

This study from NORAD focuses on religiously-motivated lobbying groups at the UN that form powerful alliances across religious divides – Catholics and Mormons; Christians and Muslims; Russian Orthodox and American fundamentalists – finding common ground in “traditional values” and “familly” agendas.

4. Joint Regional Declarations on Family and Traditional Values

The Silom Manifesto, Johannesburg Declaration, and São Leopoldo Declaration, are regional declarations that were drafted through a series of dialogues between advocates, activists, theologians and researchers that were coordinated by GIN-SSOGIE. The declarations reclaim and affirm the diversity of natural families in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean respectively.

5. Why Muslim Family Law Reform? Why Now?

As part of Musawah’s Campaign for Justice in Muslim Family Laws, this policy brief distills the 10 strongest arguments to make the case for the reform of Muslim Family Laws, especially since resistance to reform is based on religious justifications.

6. Protection of the Family – A Human Rights Response

This brief from the Sexual Rights Initiative and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development lays out key human rights standards relating to the rights of individuals within family contexts in response to the dangerous “Protection of the Family” agenda which conflicts with established principles of international human rights law, including universality and indivisibility.

7. “Protection of the Family”- What it means for human rights

This interview with Neha Sood (then of the Sexual Rights Initiative) clearly lays out the basics about the “Protection of the Family” resolutions and how they are part of a push to erode the universality of rights.

8. When “Family” is Weaponized Against LGBTQI People at the United Nations

This fact-sheet from GIN-SSOGIE details the ways in which the religious right have used concepts relating to the family to push against the rights of LGBTQI people, and sets out a progressive response based on anchoring “Family” within lived realities and inclusive faith-based Messaging, further elaborated in the accompanying “Faith Focus” fact-sheet.

9. Thematic Report on Discrimination in Family and Cultural Life

In this report, the UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice examines discrimination against women and girls in cultural and family life. Reaffirming equality between the sexes and family diversity, the report states the necessity of applying the principle of equality in all forms of family law, in secular family law systems, State-enforced religious family law systems and plural systems.

10. CEDAW and Muslim Family Laws – In Search of Common Ground

This report from Musawah examines States parties’ justifications for their failure to implement CEDAW with regard to family laws and practices that discriminate against Muslim women. Musawah present responses based on their holistic Framework for Action and give recommendations to the CEDAW Committee for a deeper engagement on the connections between Muslim family laws and practices and international human rights standards.

11. Report on Protection of the family – contribution of the family to the realization of the right to an adequate standard of living for its members

This report from OHCHR lays out the relevant provisions of human rights law with regard to the family, including the right to found a family, the right to equality in the family, and the right not to be subject to violence or abuse within the family

12. Love is a family value: Supporting all families and family members

This video from a special event of the UN LGBT Core Group from 2014 documents hundreds of LGBT activists and UN diplomats gathering to celebrate Human Rights Day at the UN with a particular focus on the role of families and LGBT people

13. How the far right is weaponizing “the family”

This article presents an insider view of the World Congress of Families 2019, where a global ultra-conservative lobby came together under the seemingly innocuous ‘pro-family’ banner to strengthen their resistance to sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of women and LGBTQI people, and the rights of migrants.

14. Strong concerns on the resolution on the Protection of the Family (HRC35)

This statement from 13 civil society organizations, including feminist organizations and those working on the rights of older persons, voices concern around the 2017 resolution protection of the family. It rejects the resolution’s its failure to reflect research that the family is the primary site of violence against older persons, its narrow definition of family, and its aim to subvert the universality of international human rights.

15. International Family Equality Day

International Family Equality Day (IFED) is a global campaign to celebrate the diversity of families annually on May 3rd. IFED 2020 focused on Family Diversity in Education, calling for integration of family diversity in the education system and curricula. The campaign materials include a collection of affirming educational materials.

States urged to respect, protect, and fulfill the SRHR of adolescents and youth

Through the Vienna Declaration and numerous regional and international commitments, member states agreed to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of adolescents and young people, including their rights to life, bodily autonomy, education including comprehensive sexuality education, survival, and development.

However, many member states are hesitant to recognise the role of adolescents and young people’s sexuality beyond links to reproduction. Human rights violations affecting adolescents and youth must be located within the context of multiple and intersecting oppressions. Millions of them, especially girls, are coerced into unwanted sex or marriage,[1], putting them at risk of unwanted or early pregnancies, unsafe abortions, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV, and life-threatening childbirth.[2]

Indeed, pregnancy and childbirth-related complications are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15-19 years worldwide.[3] Across the globe, restrictive laws and third party authorization and parental consent requirements continue to hinder adolescents and young people’s full realisation of their sexual and reproductive rights. With the largest global youth population ever, millions of today’s young people will be failed if the human rights violations affecting us are not effectively addressed and redressed.

We urge the Human Rights Council to recognise and reaffirm the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all adolescents and young people through its resolutions, dialogues, debates, and UPRs. Further, we urge member states to respect, protect, and fulfill the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all adolescents and young people, with particular attention to those facing multiple and intersecting forms of oppression, including through full recognition of their legal capacity to access comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services autonomously. Furthermore, states should put in place effective measures to prevent and eliminate violations of adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive rights, including actions aiming to control girls’ sexuality, harmful practices, and coerced or denied medical interventions, as well as to effectively combat widespread impunity and provide adolescents and youth, in particular girls, with effective reparations, access to justice and redress, and guarantees of non-repetition in cases of violation and denial of their bodily rights.

This statement was presented at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council by the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) on behalf a number of organizations, July 8th 2019.

[1] UNICEF. (2018). Child Marriage: Latest Trends and Future Prospects.

[2]Abdul Cader, A. (2017). Ending Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: SRHR as Central to the Solution.

Kuala Lumpur: Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW).

[3] WHO. (2018). Adolescents: health risks and solutions.

Working Group on DAW commended for resolute voice in times of backlash

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) welcomes the report of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women on the causes of deprivation of liberty.

We commend the Working Group on its bold and sustained attention to structural forms of discrimination and the impact of interlocking systems of oppression, and for their unflinching focus on patriarchy as underlying cause.

Whether it be:

Women and girls confined to the home or deprived of their rights to free movement and self-determination, justified in the name of ‘complementarity’ or ‘guardianship’;
Women Human Rights Defenders monitored and criminalized for their work challenging fundamentalisms, authoritarianism, and extractivism;
Women who are migrants, indigenous, or racial or religious minorities – and those who are sexual and gender non-conforming – disproportionately targeted for policing and control; or
Deprivation of women and girls’ liberty arising from systems of economic inequality –

Today our fundamental right of bodily autonomy is profoundly threatened, and a fixation on controlling women and girls’ bodies and lives is a common thread amongst the rising far right – a central preoccupation for diverse fundamentalisms, fascisms, white supremacy, corporate power, and neo-colonialism.

We must reject these anti-rights ideologies that promote hate, control and inequality – that instrumentalize culture and religion, appropriate human rights language, and threaten multilateral systems in order to foster impunity and violate rights – and unite to defend gender justice and the core principle of the universality of rights.

Over the past 9 years the pioneering work of the Working Group has been critical to further issues of women’s human rights at the Council and beyond; a resolute and essential voice in this time of backlash. We stress our strong support for the mandate, and call upon States to ensure its renewal and to reaffirm their commitment to cooperate with the Working Group in a united effort to protect, promote and fulfil women’s equality and gender justice.

It is the time for action, to prove our commitment to women and girls’ human rights. There is no excuse for discrimination.

This statement was delivered by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) at the 41st session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, June 26th 2019.

#DayOfFamilies: 14 Resources for Progressive Family Advocacy

Today, May 15th, is the International Day of Families. But what do families, human rights and gender justice have to do with one another?

Yet today we stand witness to ongoing violations of these intrinsic rights across regions – including intimate partner violence and child abuse, harmful practices, stigmatization, and unequal family laws – and the failure of states to ensure these rights and to hold perpetrators accountable.

And at the same time, conservative actors are leading the charge at the United Nations and other human rights spaces to undermine and chip away at our rights protections themselves. Ironically, many of these actors use emerging discourses around ‘the family’ to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.

Conservative discourses undermining rights

We are increasingly seeing the spread of a conservative discourse in human rights spaces which seeks to employ the term “family” strategically – to reserve human rights for the few instead of for all, to promote inequality and to weaken our existing human rights protections.

Equality in family laws

Families are diverse

Contrary to the claims of anti-rights actors, and as the human rights framework has recognized time and time again, families are diverse and take many different forms around the world. Family has always evolved and today manifests itself in many forms such as the nuclear family, single parent family, cross-generational family, same-sex (parents) family, childless family, and child-headed family.

Please share these with your networks, let us know of your key resources, and tweet using the hashtag #DayOfFamilies

1. Reclaiming Family Values: How to address family in social justice activism

2. Key Opposition Discourses

3. Lobbying for Faith and Family

4. Johannesburg Declaration

This Declaration is part of a series of joint declarations written by advocates, activists, theologians and researchers from around the world, and coordinated by GIN-SSOGIE, which reclaims and affirms the diversity of natural families in Africa, including the families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people, and promotes and defend these families locally, regionally and internationally.

5. Silom Manifesto

In this Manifesto, coordinated by GIN-SSOGIE, Asia-based and -focused activists and advocates reclaim and affirm the diversity of families in Asia, which include the families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people.

6. Protection of the Family – A Human Rights Response

7. “Protection of the Family”- What it means for human rights

This interview with Neha Sood (then of the Sexual Rights Iniaitive) clearly lays out the basics about the “Protection of the Family” resolutions and how they are part of a push to erode the universality of rights.

8. When “Family” is Weaponized Against LGBTQI People at the United Nations

9. Thematic Report on Discrimination in Family and Cultural Life

In this report, the Working Group examines discrimination against women and girls in cultural and family life. Reaffirming equality between the sexes and family diversity, the report states the necessity of applying is necessary to apply the principle of equality in all forms of family law, in secular family law systems, State-enforced religious family law systems and plural systems.

10. CEDAW and Muslim Family Laws – In Search of Common Ground

This report from Musawah examines States parties’ justifications for their failure to implement CEDAW with regard to family laws and pratices that discriminate against Muslim women. Musawah present responses based on their holistic Framework for Action and give recommendations to the CEDAW Committee for a deeper engagement on the connections between Muslim family laws and practices and international human rights standards.

11. Report on Protection of the family – contribution of the family to the realization of the right to an adequate standard of living for its members

This report from OHCHR lays out the relevant provisions of human rights law with regard to the family, including the right to found a family, Right to equality in the family, and the right not to be subject to violence or abuse within the family

12. Love is a family value: Supporting all families and family members

A video from a special event of the UN LGBT Core Group from 2014 where hundreds of LGBT activists and UN diplomats gathered to celebrate Human Rights Day at the UN with a particular focus on the role of families and LGBT people

13. How the far right is weaponising “the family”

This article presents an insider view of the World Congress of Families 2019, where a globally ultra-conservative lobby came together under the seemingly innocuous ‘pro-family’ banner to strengthen their resistance to sexual and reproductive rights,the rights of women and LGBTQI people, and the rights of migrants.

14. Strong concerns on the resolution on the Protection of the Family (HRC35)

#Sept28: 15 resources to strengthen our struggle for safe and legal abortion

Around the world, roughly one in four pregnancies worldwide ends in abortion. But the options available to a person seeking abortion differ starkly depending on their location and circumstances.

26 countries still have a total ban on abortion, where many others allow abortion only under very restricted circumstances. Even in some places were abortion is legal, such as Italy, accessing abortion can be extremely difficult due to the high number of providers who refuse to conduct the procedure on grounds of “conscientious objection”.

Across the diversity of legal contexts, a person’s ability to access safe abortion depends on a number intersecting factors such as immigration status, age, being part of an ethnic minority, and socio-economic status. The world over, those living in poverty experience the most difficulty accessing safe abortion.

Furthermore, one thing that all countries have in common regardless of their laws and policies is stigma. Levels of stigma do vary between contexts, but for the most part those who access abortions still fear being judged, arrested, persecuted, harassed and in some cases even killed.

Stigma is self-perpetuating: it results in underreporting of abortions, feeding a societal misconception that abortions are abnormal, and thus furthering stigma itself.

Everybody in the world is entitled to bodily autonomy and freedom, without discrimination. Yet we continue to see the human right to safe and legal abortion imperiled by anti-rights actors. We are currently witnessing an increase in attacks against abortion rights defenders and medical providers, as part of a broader global trend of backlash against sexual and reproductive rights, and towards universal rights and gender justice more broadly.

However, we also celebrate our thriving struggles. From the mass “Black Protests” and the halting of the latest repressive abortion bill in Poland, to the international movement for #AbortoLegalYa sparked by the Argentinian tide of green bandanas, and the swell of pro-choice organizing to successfully repeal the Eight Amendment in Ireland – our collective resistance is strong.

This September 28, the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, we are highlighting a selection of resources for activists working to further safe and legal abortion and on rights related to gender and sexuality worldwide. Please share these with your networks, and let us know of your key resources!

1. Rights At Risk: Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2017

The first Trends Report from OURs is a comprehensive resource outlining the key actors, discourses, and strategies in the global anti-rights lobby. With abortion a key battleground for these actors, it contains a wealth of information on the strategies of ultraconservative actors to roll back women’s right to choose.

2. Whose Right to Life? Women’s Rights and Prenatal Protections under Human Rights Law and Comparative Law

This toolkit from the Center for Reproductive Rights breaks down the emerging trend to extend a right to life before birth, and in particular from conception. It provides way to respond to this trend, which poses a significant threat to women’s human rights.

3. A New Vision for Advancing Our Movement for Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, and Reproductive Justice

This 2005 resource from Forward Together (then Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice or ACRJ) provides a deep analysis of the reproductive justice framework. It lays out the differences between the three frameworks of Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, and Reproductive Justice, as well as outlining concepts such as “reproductive oppression”. It also charts the creation of the reproductive justice movement led by women of colour in the United States.

4. Status of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Central and Eastern Europe

This factsheet from Astra gives an overview of SRHR in the Central and Eastern Europe region, summarizing the regional context and the regional state of abortion, contraception, sexuality education, and gender-based violence. It also provides 10 recommendations to Governments, international organizations, and other stakeholders.

5. The Decriminalization of Abortion: A Human Rights Imperative

This six-pager from the Sexual Rights Initiative lays out the fundamental right to abortion from an international law perspective; how criminalization leads to the denial of women’s fundamental rights to life, to health, to bodily autonomy, to freedom from torture, and to freedom from discrimination.

6. Mass Prosecution for Abortion: Violation of the Reproductive Rights of Women in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

This paper from AWID discusses the health issues and rights violations faced by women in Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil, where abortion is criminalized. It discusses the history and pitfalls of criminalizing abortion, and uses the Mato Grosso do Sul case study to investigate the numerous rights violations in the region.

7. CRR World’s Abortion Laws Map

This interactive map from the Center for Reproductive Rights is updated in real time to keep pace with changes in how countries are protecting – or denying – women’s reproductive freedom. Created in 1998, the map allows you to visually compare the legal status of abortion across the globe.

8. Advancing the SRHR of Adolescent Girls and Young Women: A Focus on Safe Abortion in the 2030 Agenda

In this factsheet for advocates and policymakers, Ipas explain how The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be a powerful tool for advancing adolescent girls’ and young women’s sexual and reproductive rights—especially their right to safe, legal abortion. It includes explanations of how specific goals and targets within the development agenda apply to women’s right to safe abortion, and how to hold governments accountable to these goals.

9. Supporting Independent Use of Abortion Medicines: Fighting Stigma One Email at a Time

This resource from Women Help Women goes into depth about how abortion stigma operates, with a specific focus on countries where access to safe abortion is restricted and on the independent use of abortion medicines. It provides models of advocacy that can address stigma, and features reflection on some of the paradoxes of this area of work.

10. Aborto: Aspectos sociales, eticos y religiosos

This resource in Spanish from Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir discussed social, ethical, and religious aspects of the debates around abortion. It discusses abortion reform in Mexico, breaks down arguments that equate abortion with homicide, and discusses abortion from the perspective of freedom of conscience and the right to decide.

11. Breaking Ground 2018: Treaty Monitoring Bodies on Reproductive Rights

This annual publication from the Center for Reproductive Rights summarizes the jurisprudence from United Nations treaty monitoring bodies on reproductive rights, particularly the standards on maternal health care, abortion, and contraception.

12. How to Talk About Abortion: A Guide to Rights-Based Messaging

This guide from IPPF is designed to help organizations review communications materials that include messages about abortion. It includes “golden rules of abortion messaging” and checklists to review and improve abortion messaging.

13. Young and Vulnerable – The Reality of Unsafe Abortion among Adolescent and Young Women

This paper by the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) discusses the legal barriers, social stigma, and lack of information faced by young women in the Asia-Pacific region. It provides case studies from the Philippines and Pakistan, and monitors developments internationally and in countries in the region.

14. The Medical and Social Benefits Of Abortion Access

This two-page factsheet from Planned Parenthood demonstrates the many health benefits — physical, emotional, and social — that have resulted in the US since have 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in its decision, Roe v. Wade

15. Arrow for Change – The Right to Choose

This latest volume of Arrow for Change from ARROW shares diverse voices from the ground speaking out for abortion rights and sharing their lived experiences from countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Poland, and Ireland. It analyses the discourse on abortion as an issue of rights, and bodily autonomy of women and looks at neo-legal, non-legal, and contextual barriers to access to abortion.

The Human Rights Council must condemn attacks on abortion rights defenders

In support of the September 28 “Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion”, 223 civil society organizations from around the world, in members of the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs), have endorsed this joint statement on abortion rights.

Through the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, States explicitly agreed to prioritize the realization of all women’s human rights. From Ireland, to Argentina, to South Korea, to Poland and to the Democratic Republic of Congo, women human rights defenders around the world are taking to the streets, to the courtrooms and to the ballot boxes to reclaim control over their own bodies and lives by demanding access to comprehensive abortion care. We unite in solidarity to recognize the shared roots of multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in our struggles.

Although sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) have been broadly recognized under international law, women human rights defenders (WHRDs) working on these rights often face harassment, discrimination, stigma, criminalization and physical violence.[1] As highlighted by UNGA resolution 68/181, the first ever resolution focusing on WHRDs, such abuses are violations of a person’s fundamental rights to life, liberty, psychological and physical integrity, privacy, freedom of opinion and expression, association and peaceful assembly.

Human rights violations perpetrated against abortion rights defenders and providers are part of a broader framework of backlash against sexual and reproductive rights aimed at instrumentalizing women’s bodies and lives [2]. Through restrictive and/or discriminatory laws and policies, some states fail to prevent or actively perpetuate these violations. In doing so, they institutionalize abortion stigma and create a hostile environment for abortion providers to carry out their work. Many persist, but others are harassed, or threatened until they cease providing such care.

This forces persons – including girls – with unwanted pregnancies to risk their lives, health and well-being by turning to unsafe abortion. It is the State’s obligation to repeal or eliminate laws, policies and practices that criminalize, obstruct or undermine individual’s or group’s access to sexual and reproductive health facilities, services, goods and information, including restrictive abortion laws.

States can no longer ignore the scientific evidence, the jurisprudence and the growing consensus among human rights bodies that abortion rights are human rights. The criminalization of abortion and the failure to ensure access to comprehensive abortion care has been found to be a violation of, inter alia, the rights to health, to bodily autonomy, freedom from discrimination, to the benefits of scientific progress, to privacy and to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment amongst other human rights.

In addition, impunity for attacks on abortion rights defenders, including abortion providers, is a clear violation of the principles set forth in the Declaration of Human Rights Defenders.

Therefore, today, on September 28, Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, we stand together as abortion rights defenders, allies and supporters from around the world and call on the Council to condemn attacks on abortion rights defenders and to urgently address the human rights violations arising from the denial of comprehensive abortion care through its resolutions, decisions, dialogues, reviews and debates.

Further, we demand that governments across the world respect, protect and fulfill the right of WHRDs working to ensure comprehensive abortion care and post-abortion care to do their work free from all forms of intimidation, harassment and violence from both State and non-State actors.

This statement was developed by the Sexual Rights Initiative, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Ipas, the Asia-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women, the Youth Coalition for Sexual Health and Rights, AWID and the Swedish Association for Sexuality and Education.

It was read aloud at the 39th Session of the Human Rights Council, on 24 September 2018, by Danielle Rosset on behalf of the signatory organizations, during the general debate under Agenda Item 8: Follow-up to and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.

Despite Progress, Gay & Abortion Rights Face Threats in Latin America

Gillian Kane is a senior policy advisor for Ipas, an international women’s reproductive health and rights organisation.

SUVA, Fiji, Dec 7 2017 (IPS) – Cancun, Mexico, of white sand beaches and spring break-style nightlife, was, this past June, the unusual backdrop for a regional gathering on human rights and democracy.

Tour buses accustomed to ferrying sandal-shod tourists to Mayan ruins, instead, transported well-heeled activists and government representatives from their hotels to the Centro de Convenciones.

Parked a few kilometers away, one bus, neon orange and passenger-less, stood out. The so-called “Freedom Bus” was emblazoned with massive letters; “Leave our children alone!” #dontmesswithourchildren.

It was, according to its organizers, designed to get the attention of delegates attending the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS). They wanted attendees to know they were putting themselves on the line to resist all attempts by permissive governments to indoctrinate their children in the immoral principles of “gender ideology.” They were, they insisted, defending their religious and freedom of speech rights.

Never mind that there is no “gender ideology,” much less governments that are forcing children to learn inappropriate material. This bus is just one of many recent direct-action attempts by right-wing organizations to pedal a falsehood that governments, aided by well-endowed liberal foundations, are out to get your children.

The bus provides the arresting visual, but it’s what takes place inside the conference center that should raise our hackles. The concern for the wellbeing of children is a cover; what these organizations want to do is disable efforts to advance protections and rights for girls, women and LGBTI people.

The movement, which defines itself as in opposition to “gender ideology,” is a response to progress made in the last decade advancing human rights for vulnerable populations.

Meanwhile, the decade has also seen an increase in the organizing power and political influence of conservative evangelical churches, especially in Central America, Mexico, and Brazil.

Latin America is the locus for much of the progress on LGBTI and abortion rights, both at the country and regional level. Same-sex marriages are legal in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay.

And significant advances have been made to increase access to legal abortion in Argentina, Chile, Mexico City, Colombia, Bolivia and Uruguay. At the regional level, the OAS has been a champion for LGBTI rights as early as 2008, when it adopted its first resolution condemning violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

By 2011, the OAS had created a dedicated LGBTI Unit at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The progress did not go unchallenged.

Opponents of sexual and reproductive rights and LGBTI rights in Latin America responded to victories directly, through both legislation and litigation. They also responded in more insidious ways.

Last year, in Brazil, ministries promoting equal rights for women and black communities were downgraded when they were folded into the Ministry of Justice, effectively neutralizing the ability of its leadership to negotiate or move forward any progressive policies.

The deliberate dismantling of government infrastructures that protect human rights is not endemic to Brazil. Indeed, it is a dedicated strategy of anti-rights organizations who are working to both coopt and fragment these spaces.

Read the full article from IPS News

Experts release much anticipated expansion of the Yogyakarta Principles

An anticipated set of new principles on international human rights law relating to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) —released today by a group of 33 international human rights experts—charts a way forward for both the United Nations, governments, and other stakeholders to re-affirm their commitment to universal human rights.

A full list of signatories can be seen here.

The Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 (YP+10) were adopted by the experts following a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in September 2017. This meeting followed a period of open consultations, led by the International Service for Human Rights and ARC International, the formation of an expert Drafting Committee, who synthesized the feedback, and the establishment of a Secretariat who supported the process. The new principles reflect significant developments both in the field of international human rights law and in the understanding of violations affecting persons of ‘diverse sexual orientations and gender identities’, as well as a recognition of the often-distinct violations affecting persons on grounds of ‘gender expression’ and ‘sex characteristics’.

“The YP+10 introduce new language which arises from rights violations that were occurring at the time of the original YPs and since,” said Mauro Cabral Grinspan of Argentina, who was part of the Drafting Committee “By naming and articulating them across the entire Yogyakarta Principles, we hope to address previous gaps and contribute not only to the eradication of violations, but also the reparation of the damages they cause around the world.”

Cabral Grinspan is the Executive Director of GATE, an international organization working on gender identity, sex characteristics and, more broadly, on bodily diversity issues. He was also a signatory to the original Yogyakarta Principles.

The Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 supplement the original 29 Yogyakarta Principles and set out nine Additional Principles covering a range of rights dealing with information and communication technologies, poverty, and cultural diversity, to name a few. There are also 111 Additional State Obligations, a number of which have arisen over the past decade with regards to the original 29 Principles, including in areas such as torture, asylum, privacy and health and the protection of human rights defenders.

“It is unacceptable that LGBTI people still face discrimination, including in health care settings, leading to detrimental impact on the realization of their right to health,” said Dainius Pūras of Lithuania. “Discrimination on the grounds of SOGIESC needs to be addressed globally, in the spirit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, ensuring there is no-one left behind. YP+10 is a very important step in this direction.”

Pūras is the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and is a professor of child psychiatry and public mental health at Vilnius University, Lithuania.

The principles call for action from states, UN bodies and agencies, national human rights institutions, mass media, non-governmental organizations, professional organizations, and others. They have been endorsed by UN independent experts, members of treaty bodies, judges, academics, parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others, including the UN’s first Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand.

“The Additional Principles launched today, along with the original 29 principles, articulate basic political, social and economic rights enshrined in international law, yet many in our communities have yet to actually exercise and enjoy these rights due to discrimination,” said Sanji Mmasenono Monageng of Botswana. “We implore the international community to pledge its commitment to protect human rights for all, especially those governments that continue to allow and even promote discrimination towards LGBTI persons.”

Monageng is a judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and former chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. She was also a signatory to the original Yogyakarta Principles.

The Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 reflect some of the key issues and developments relating to the specific forms of rights violations experienced by persons on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics. They respond to well-documented patterns of abuse, ranging from discrimination in the workplace to violence and torture, and are an affirmation of existing international legal standards.

“The YP+10 released today will help civil society and other stakeholders hold governments accountable for fulfilling their obligations under international human rights law,” said Julia Ehrt of Germany, who was part of the Drafting Committee. “In the context of violence against LBGTI persons, this accountability includes protection, support for victims, investigation of crime, and holding perpetrators to account, along with tackling structural violence.”

Ehrt is the Executive Director of Transgender Europe (TGEU). In 2009, TGEU started Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM), a pioneering project in the collecting, monitoring, and analyzing of reports of murdered trans people worldwide.

For more information on the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10, and to download your copy, please consult the Yogyakarta Principles website. Currently, the online version is in English. French, Spanish and Chinese versions will follow in the coming weeks, while Arabic and Russian versions will be rolled out in the early part of 2018.

There are numerous regional and global launch activities and seminars/webinars being planned in the coming months, including one on December 13, 2017 in Geneva. In addition, there will be two upcoming webinars offered on January 16, 2018 and February 15, 2018. More details can be found using the following links: January16th and February 15th

Via ARC International

Time to fight global avalanche of misogyny caused by fundamentalism and extremism, UN rights expert says

The world must fight back against a growing threat to women’s rights fuelled by rising fundamentalism and extremism, a UN human rights expert has told the General Assembly in New York.

“Fundamentalism and extremism are giving rise to widespread abuses of women’s cultural rights,” said Karima Bennoune, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, presenting a report on the global challenges being faced.

“Some of the most urgent threats that women’s human rights will face in coming years will include the diverse forms of fundamentalism and extremism that are on the rise across all regions of the world.”

The Special Rapporteur asked the audience: “What world will your daughters inherit? This is a wake-up call for our times. We face a multidirectional global avalanche of misogyny, motivated by diverse fundamentalist and extremist ideologies. For the sake of all the daughters around the world, let us come together and take an unequivocal stand for women’s equal cultural rights, to reverse this worrying trend.

Ms. Bennoune said protecting women’s rights was not optional in tackling fundamentalism and extremism, which have inequality and rejection of human rights at their core and have to be met with a vigorous international human rights-based challenge.

“These ideologies seek to roll back advances achieved in securing women’s equality, aim to block further advances, and try to penalize and stigmatize women human rights defenders promoting such critical efforts. They give rise to a backlash against women’s rights and those who defend them,” she said.

“Diverse religious fundamentalists have sought to punish cultural expression incompatible with their interpretations of religion through blasphemy laws, gender discriminatory family laws, campaigns of harassment, human rights abuses and outright violence.”

“Extremists often harass and target women who are members of minority groups, or who are immigrants or are lesbian, bisexual or transgender, as they seek to enjoy their equal cultural rights. They are often motivated by myths of a homogenous nation, claims of cultural or ethnic or racial superiority or purity, and populist ultra-nationalism.”

The Special Rapporteur called for an immediate end to discriminatory practices such as banning women’s artistic expression, extremist targeting of cultural events associated with women and girls, the imposition of “modest” dress codes, and curbs on women’s equal participation in social, economic, political and cultural affairs.

“Boosting the protection and promotion of women’s human rights is not only essential to tackling extremism, but there is no way to achieve gender equality by 2030 as committed to in the UN Sustainable Development Goals without addressing the human rights impacts of fundamentalism and extremism,” she added.

The Special Rapporteur said she had particular concerns that fundamentalists and extremists were targeting education in an effort to impose their worldviews.

“The promotion and defence of non-sexist education in accordance with international standards, and of non-discrimination and full equality for women and girls in education, are among the most important measures governments can take to defeat fundamentalism and extremism and defend women’s cultural rights,” Ms. Bennoune said.

“Arts, education, science and culture are among the best ways to fight fundamentalism and extremism and support women’s rights. These are not luxuries, but are critical to creating alternatives and protecting youth from any form of radicalization.”

She also paid tribute to female human rights defenders around the world who “recognized and responded to” extremism, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, and stressed they should be central to developing strategies to combat fundamentalism and extremism. “Empowering them disempowers extremists,” she added.

The Special Rapporteur said the answer lay partially in secular politics and governance.

“The separation of religion and state is a critical piece of the struggle against fundamentalist and extremist ideologies that target women, as it creates or preserves space for women and minorities to challenge those ideologies, and to enjoy their cultural rights without discrimination,” Ms. Bennoune said.

She also stressed that women’s rights should never be used as a bargaining chip in pursuit of peace with extremist and fundamentalist groups. “Giving in to the social demands of fundamentalists and extremists, especially about women, only exacerbates the human rights situation and leads to escalating claims,” she said.

The Special Rapporteur is convening a side event, The Impact of Fundamentalism and Extremism on the Cultural Rights of Women: Time to Take a Stand, at 1700 local time on 26 October 2017, in Conference Room 11, UN Headquarters, New York. The event will also be live-streamed here.