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Friday 13 May 2016 – A Good Day for Intersex Human Rights?

Friday 13 May: A sign of hope for intersex children everywhere – and yet another stern warning for IGM perpetrators and complicit states? Keep your fingers crossed!

UPR: Ireland critisised over Intersex Genital Mutilations

All UN Member States have to submit regularly to a “Universal Periodic Review (UPR)” of their human rights records, reported by a “troika” of their peers and considered by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), who then adopts recommendations.

Despite that human rights violations of intersex people have been reported to the HRC since at least 2012, so far the HRC never specifically discussed intersex human rights concerns, let alone issued recommendations to stop IGM practices.

Most welcome therefore the news (thx ILGA) from the ongoing 25th session of the UPR Working Group where Israel went on record addressing IGM practices in its Statement regarding Ireland (PDF):

“Israel is concerned by the cases of medically unnecessary surgeries and other procedures on intersex children before they were able to provide their informed consent;”

The Human Rights Council will adopt the recommendations for Ireland today Friday 13 May 16–18h.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has recently reprimanded Ireland over IGM practices, considering them a “harmful practice” (like FGM) and calling on Ireland to “adopt legal provisions in order to provide redress to the victims of such treatment, including adequate compensation.”

CAT to reprimand France over IGM Practices

Also today Friday 13 May concludes the 57th Session of the UN Committee against Torture (CAT), which knowledgeably questioned France over IGM practices and is hoped to issue strong binding recommendations for France. This will mark the 11th reprimand by a UN Treaty Body of a State complicit in the continuation of IGM.

France was also recently reprimanded over IGM practices by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

10 Verdicts by UN Treaty Bodies Condemning IGM – And Counting …

The Committee against Torture (CAT) has repeatedly considered Intersex Genital Mutilations as constituting at least inhuman treatment in breach of the Convention against Torture, and since 2011 reprimanded Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Hong Kong over IGM.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) considers IGM as violence and a harmful practice (like FGM) and since 2015 reprimanded Switzerland, Chile, France and Ireland over IGM.

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) also considers IGM asinhuman treatment and reprimanded Germany.

In all above 10 verdicts, the Committees issued binding recommendations to take legislative action to end the practice and/or to ensure access to redress and justice for IGM survivors.

In addition, the Human Rights Committee (HRCttee) as the governing body of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) is currently investigating IGM and called onSwitzerland to disclose statistics.

This news update is taken from a newsletter of the international intersex human rights NGO StopIGM.org

StopIGM.org demands the prohibition of forced genital surgeries on children and adolescents with Variations of Sex Anatomy and “Human Rights for Hermaphrodites too!”. Persons concerned shall later decide themselves, if they want surgeries or not, and if yes, which.

UN CESCR Adopts General Comment on Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health

The Sexual Rights Initiative (SRI) welcomes the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment 22 on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health, adopted in March 2016. The SRI actively engaged in the development of the General Comment (See SRI submission to the General Day of Discussion) and believes that General Comment 22 makes a valuable contribution to the realization of sexual and reproduction health and rights for all.

Following trends in human rights jurisprudence, the Committee prepared the General Comment in response to continuing grave violations of the right to sexual and reproductive health across the world. It is designed to assist States in the fulfillment of their obligations under the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant).

The General Comment reaffirms the right to sexual and reproductive health as an integral part of the right to health enshrined in Article 12 of the Covenant and its indivisibility from and interdependence with the full range of human rights, inter alia, the right to education; to non-discrimination; to equality; to freedom from torture and other cruel, to inhuman or degrading treatment; to privacy and respect for family life; to life; and to liberty and security of person.

Through elaboration of the essential elements of the right to sexual and reproductive health, State obligations and options for effective remedies for violations, the General Comment sets out a clear and practical path for States to comply with their responsibilities under the Covenant.

States are required to respect, protect and fulfill the right to sexual and reproductive health without discrimination and on an equal basis, paying particular attention to individuals belonging to groups that face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.[1]

States are under obligation to:

Ensure adolescents and youth have access to comprehensive sexuality education and services, regardless of marital status or parental consent
Ensure sexual and reproductive health services are available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality
Undertake preventative, promotional and remedial action to shield individuals from gender-based violence and discriminatory practices and norms such as female genital mutilation, child, early and forced marriage and marital rape, among others
Develop and enforce evidence-based standards and guidelines for the provision and delivery of sexual and reproductive health services
Provide access to effective remedies for violations of the right to sexual and reproductive health.

As a consolidation and elaboration of the broad array of standards that firmly establish the right to sexual and reproductive health, General Comment 22 will be helpful for States to understand and act on their obligations, for civil society to hold their governments accountable through the treaty body review processes and the Universal Periodic Review, and for States to engage in constructive dialogue with each other on these issues.

The SRI encourages Member States, UN agencies, civil society, the UN Human Rights Council and its mechanisms and all other stakeholders to integrate the General Comment into their respective approaches to promoting, protecting and respecting the full range of human rights for all persons.

[1] The respect, protection and fulfillment of sexual and reproductive rights is achieved in part by repealing or reforming laws and policies that nullify or impair individuals’ ability to realize their right to sexual and reproductive health. Highlighted examples include laws that criminalize abortion, consensual same-sex relationships, particular sexual and reproductive health services and information, transgender identity or expression, and HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission. Practical or procedural barriers to sexual and reproductive health care, services and information imposed by the State or third parties must also be removed, including parental, spousal or judicial authorization requirements, mandatory HIV testing, waiting periods for abortion or divorce, and the exclusion of particular sexual and reproductive health services from public funding or foreign assistance funds.

Originally posted on the Sexual Rights Initiative website

Ipas and partners stress harms of criminal abortion laws in Latin America

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

The Inter-American Dialogue, a leading U.S. and foreign policy think tank, this week brought together Ipas and partners to raise awareness of a persistent human rights concern: Across Latin America, laws that make abortion a crime are violating women’s basic human rights. According to new research, laws in the region increasingly require or encourage health providers to report women to the police if suspected of having an abortion.

“Latin America continues to have the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, which violate the human rights of women and health providers who are arrested, prosecuted and jailed for alleged abortion-related crimes,” says Ipas Senior Policy Advisor Bia Galli, who spoke at The Dialogue’s event. Joining Galli were representatives from the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission of Women, and Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

Five countries in Latin America—Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic—ban abortion under all circumstances, even to save a woman’s life. Where laws are less restrictive, women still face significant legal obstacles to accessing safe abortion services.

“Laws criminalizing abortion in the region have a devastating impact on Latin American women’s health and lead to violations of their human rights, particularly their right to physical, mental and social health,” says O’Neill Institute Executive Director Oscar Cabrera, who also spoke at the event.

Women who seek life-saving health care risk arrest

A new Ipas report, “Betraying women: Provider duty to report,” reveals an alarming trend of medical staff breaching patient confidentiality and reporting women and girls to the police when they seek urgent health care for complications following an unsafe or self-induced abortion. This in turn creates fear and forces women to choose between seeking care (which may lead to imprisonment) or avoiding care and risking permanent injury or death.

“By turning hospitals and clinics into entry points to the criminal justice system, these laws are creating a hostile environment for women’s sexual and reproductive health and causing violations of women’s basic human rights to life, health, patient privacy and freedom from torture,” Galli explains.

In some countries, providers are now legally required to report a patient suspected of having an abortion to the police; in other countries, providers can be required to share confidential information during criminal investigations or legal proceedings. And in many cases across the region, health-care providers mistakenly believe abortion is illegal and report women for fear of being punished if they do not.

“Requiring health providers to report suspected illegal abortions results in breaches of the providers’ duty to protect doctor-patient confidentiality and undermines trust in the health system,” Cabrera says. The new report is based on research the O’Neill Institute compiled in partnership with Ipas.

The report calls on international bodies, governments and health-care providers to reverse course and instead create patient-centered health-care systems that protect patient confidentiality and uphold standard medical ethics related to patient privacy.

Learn more

Betraying women: Provider duty to report

Protecting women’s access to safe abortion care: A guide to understanding the human rights to privacy and confidentiality

Anti-LGBT group from U.S. holds Barbados conference

An anti-LGBT group from the U.S. held a conference in Barbados this past weekend.

National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown and Scott Strim, an American evangelical who opposes efforts to repeal Belize’s sodomy law, spoke at the World Congress of Families Caribbean Regional Conference that took place at a resort on the Caribbean island on April 8-9.

Josh and Caroline Craddock of CitizenGO, which describes itself as a “community of active citizens” who use “online petitions and action alerts as a resource to defend and promote life, family and liberty,” were among those who were also present.

An agenda posted to the conference’s website indicates that Brown was scheduled to speak on a panel titled, “Marriage as a public good: Why we should defend marriage as between one man and one woman.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has designed the World Congress of Families as a hate group.

Those who presented at the conference also spoke against abortion and contraception.

Read the full article from the Washington Blade now.

Marriage Under 18 Banned in the Pankisi Gorge

Religious leaders in the Pankisi Gorge will no longer endorse marriage for those under the age of 18. Pankisi is located in the eastern part of Georgia (Kakheti region) and is mostly populated by ethnic Kists. The decision was made by imams from traditional Islamic mosques, together with the Council of Elders in the Gorge.

In Pankisi, early marriages are most common among girls aged 16-17. Although the trend is no longer growing compared with previous years, here, girls are deemed ready for marriage after they finish school. Religious leaders enjoy a high level of authority in Pankisi, which is why their choice to make a public statement about their decision on discouraging early marriages is of paramount importance. It is noteworthy that the Council of Women Elders has contributed a lot to making this decision.

The initiative emerged in November 2015, when Pankisi’s Council of Women Elders and the Kakheti Regional Development Foundation (KRDF) organized a rally against early marriage, as part of the 16-days of Activism against Gender Violence. Iza Bekauri, Director of KRDF and one of the founders of the Council of Women Elders, says that the Council of Elders were also invited to the event: “We met with the youths and called on them to say NO to early marriage. We have worked with the Council of Elders too in this respect. They liked the initiative and decided to make this topic public.”

Read the full article from UN Women now.

Debates on Sexuality Education vs March for Life in Romania

The month of March in Romania was devoted to both heated debates on the introduction of sexuality education in schools as well as the annual march for life organized by Students for Life. The pro-choice activists did not counteract the march, but rather focused on constructive debates organized and hosted by the ministries of education and health.

The theme of this year’s March for Life was “For life, for woman, for the family”, inspired from the Washington march and it was organized in 110 cities across the country, plus 30 cities in the Republic of Moldova. The march in Bucharest was attended by 2,700 people, while all the activities along the ‘month for life’ were allegedly attended by 70,000 people. The main messages rehashed by the media were: “22 million abortions in 60 years” (in reference to the total population a few years ago) and “Romania ranks first in the EU in the number of abortions”. In conclusion, this type of march and related activities are organized by young people, they choose positive messages and gather larger numbers of people, including artists as ambassadors.

Moreover, they follow and report on pro-choice activists’ activities, such as ASTRA member Daniela Draghici: prior to the march, the ministries of education and health organized public debates on the introduction of sexuality education in the optional subject “health education” as part of the school curriculum. ASTRA delegate pointed out that the position promoted by the Gender Coalition she represented coincided with that supported by the ministries of education, health, labor, youth and raised questions referring to the measures the ministry was going to take when parents’ associations and the church were opposing the health education classes and kept promoting abstinence and showing high school students films such as “The Silent Scream” during the religion classes that are, unfortunately, part of the curriculum. At the same time, she also offered the assistance of specialized NGOs members of the Gender Coalition, the only force counteracting the anti-choice in Romania. The Students for Life representative present at the debate posted the entire address of the ASTRA member, accompanied by a photo taken from the Facebook account without permission, where Daniela Draghici was impersonating the Holy See at a EuroNGOs conference.

Read the entire article from the ASTRA Network now.

Peruvian Government Publicly Recognizes Human Rights Violations Against Rape Survivor

The Peruvian government publicly acknowledged the human rights violations suffered by L.C., a rape survivor who was denied a medically-necessary abortion, as part of a historic United Nations (U.N.) ruling.

Peru’s Minister of Justice, Aldo Alejandro Vásquez Ríos, admitted the government’s failure to guarantee L.C.’s right to access legal abortion services at a convening today with health officials and civil society organizations, including the Center for Reproductive Rights and PROMSEX. In 2011, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) condemned Peru for violating L.C.’s human rights and recommended that Peru amend its law to allow abortion in cases of rape; ensure the availability of those abortion services; and guarantee access to abortion services when a woman’s life or health is in danger—circumstances under which abortion is already legal in the country.

The Center and PROMSEX brought L.C. v. Peru to CEDAW and negotiated the reparations agreement with the Peruvian government. This decision marks the third time in history that an international human rights body held a government accountable for failing to ensure access to legal abortion services. The Peruvian government was also held accountable by the Human Rights Committee in 2005 for failing to guarantee access to abortion to K.L., a woman who was forced to continue with a pregnancy that put her physical and mental health at risk, and recently provided her reparations.

Read the full article from the Center for Reproductive Rights now.

Sierra Leone abortion bill blocked by President Bai Koroma again

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma has again refused to sign a bill legalising abortion, saying it should be put to a referendum.

It was unanimously passed by MPs in December, but Mr Koroma refused to sign it after protests by religious leaders.

After consultations, MPs returned the bill to him last month, unaltered.

The law would allow women to terminate a pregnancy in any circumstances up to 12 weeks and in cases of incest, rape and foetal impairment up to 24 weeks.

Abortion is currently illegal in Sierra Leone under any circumstances.

Human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and five Sierra Leonean organisations, wrote to President Koroma in February urging him to give the bill his assent.

“Unsafe abortions – often resulting from restrictive laws and poor access to sexual and reproductive health services, information, and education – is one of the main factors contributing to maternal deaths in Sierra Leone,” their letter said.

The World Health Organization estimates that Sierra Leone has the world’s highest maternal mortality ratio at 1,360 deaths per 100,000 live births last year.

Read the full article on BBC News now.

Top UN Expert on Torture Demands an End to Abuses in Health Care

In a landmark new report presented today to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez says that severe abuses in health care settings amount to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment—and even torture. The Open Society Foundations and the Campaign to Stop Torture in Health Care welcome this conclusion, which places immediate legal obligations on governments to end such abuses.

Responsible for interpreting international understandings of torture, the Special Rapporteur’s report is the first systematic examination of torture and ill-treatment committed in health care contexts. The report says that abuse cannot be justified by claims of “medical necessity,” and it underscores the fundamental need for free, full, and informed consent by patients to any and all medical procedures.

The Special Rapporteur highlights examples of forced treatments that can constitute torture and ill-treatment:

Forced sterilization of women, transgender, and intersex people, and forced abortion—a violation disproportionately suffered by those women who face systemic discrimination, like ethnic minorities, women with disabilities, and women living with HIV.
Forced treatment and involuntary commitment of people with psychosocial (mental) disabilities, and the use of restraints, and solitary confinement.
Forced detention of drug users in inhumane facilities under the guise of treatment. Detention itself often results in painful drug withdrawal, and many facilities mandate so-called therapies—often overseen by non-medical personnel—which include beatings, shock therapy, and rigorous manual labor.

Read the full article on Open Society Foundations now.

Rights groups decry Afghanistan ‘virginity tests’

The Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan has voiced concern over “virginity tests” carried out on women or girls accused of sex outside marriage.

The commission, known as the AIHRC, said females were forcibly subjected to the invasive vaginal and rectal tests after being accused of “moral crimes” by judiciary institutions.

The results of the examinations were then used as evidence in the defendants’ trials.

The national institution interviewed 53 women and girls – some as young as 13, who had been accused of having sex outside marriage, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison in the country.

A large majority of them said they were forced into virginity tests by government doctors. Twenty of them were examined more than once.

The AIHRC also questioned the legitimacy of the methods used in the tests, saying they were being conducted without considering scientific inaccuracies and misinterpretations, as well as corruption in government institutions, and technical insufficiency that could affect the exams’ results.

Read the full article on Al Jazeera now.