Mexico on the Rights Path

Civil Society, Featured, Gender, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, TerraViva United Nations, Women’s Health

Opinion

Crerdit: Silvana Flores/AFP via Getty Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 10 2023 (IPS) – Mexico’s Supreme Court recently declared abortion bans unconstitutional, effectively decriminalising abortion throughout the vast federal country, so far characterised by a legislative patchwork.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by a civil society organisation, Information Group on Reproductive Choice. It forces the Federal Congress to repeal the Federal Penal Code articles that criminalise abortion. Effective immediately, those seeking abortions and those providing them can no longer be punished for doing so. The ruling also enshrines the right to access abortion procedures in all institutions of the federal health system network, even in states where the crime of abortion remains on the books.


Global trends

Mexico is part of a global, long-term trend of progress in sexual and reproductive rights. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, the vast majority of countries that have changed their national abortion laws over the past couple of decades have made them less restrictive. Only four countries have gone the other way: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland and the USA.

Several Latin American countries have been swept by the ‘green tide’ that originated in Argentina, increasingly liberalising abortion laws. Before the 2010s, abortion was legal in only one Latin American country, Cuba. It was legalised in Uruguay in 2012, and eight years later in Argentina. Colombia decriminalised abortion in February 2022, and other countries, such as Chile and Ecuador, have since made it legal on limited grounds, notably when pregnancy is a result of rape – which women’s rights organisations see as a milestone on the road to full legalisation.

Globally, abortion is currently legal on request in 75 countries, often until 12 weeks into pregnancy. Around a dozen more allow it for broad socio-economic reasons. Many more permit it for specific reasons such as health grounds or to save a pregnant person’s life.

But abortion remains banned under any circumstances in 24 countries, and overall 40 per cent of women of reproductive age live under restrictive abortion laws. These restrictions have a significant impact on women: it’s estimated that unsafe abortions costs the lives of 39,000 women and girls every year.

A legislative patchwork

The trend towards decriminalisation in Mexico kicked off in 2007 in Mexico City, and it took 12 years for another state, Oaxaca, to follow its lead. Change accelerated in recent years, with Hidalgo and Veracruz legalising abortion in 2021.

In September 2021, the federal Supreme Court issued its first-ever decision on abortion rights, unanimously recognising a constitutional right to safe, legal and free abortion services within a ‘short period’ early in pregnancy, and on specific grounds later. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit against the state of Coahuila, which imposed prison terms of up to three years for voluntary abortion.

Although this ruling only applied to Coahuila, it had a wider impact: judges in other states were no longer able to sentence anyone for the crime of voluntary abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.

Two days after this judgment, the Supreme Court addressed another lawsuit concerning the state of Sinaloa, issuing a ruling that declared it unconstitutional for state laws to redefine the legal concept of personhood by protecting ‘human life from conception’. And soon after, it declared invalid the principle of conscientious objection for medical practitioners in the General Health Law. A couple of months earlier it had ruled unconstitutional the time limits set by some states for abortions in cases of rape.

By the time of the Coahuila ruling, only four federal entities allowed abortion on demand up to 12 weeks. But several have changed their laws since, and by the time of the latest Supreme Court ruling, abortion on demand was already legal in 12 of Mexico’s 32 states. All states also allowed abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape, most allowed abortion when necessary to save a pregnant person’s life, and several allowed it in cases of risks to a pregnant person’s health or severe congenital foetal abnormalities.

Regional experience however suggests that making abortion conditional on exceptional grounds that must be proven tends to result in denial of access. Additionally, in Mexico, access by particularly vulnerable women has often been restricted through resistance in bureaucracies and medical institutions, even in states where abortion is legal.

Now Congress has until the end of its current session, which runs until 15 December, to amend the Penal Code clauses that criminalise abortion. But even after this, abortion will continue to be a state-level crime in 20 states. This means that abortion complaints will continue to be filed in those states. In most cases judges will ultimately have to dismiss the charges – but women will continue to be subjected to unnecessary barriers and uncertainty. For this reason, the women’s rights movement is pushing locally for decriminalisation in every Mexican state.

Effective access the next struggle

Mexican women’s rights groups are getting ready for what promises to be a long battle for effective access. They feel confident, for now, that thanks to decades of hard work public opinion is on their side. But they know that, while there may be less up-front resistance than before, there are still powerful forces against change. Resistance manifests in the imposition of barriers to prevent effective access to what is now recognised as a right, particularly for people from the most excluded groups in society.

Denial of access can take many forms: long waiting times, the need for multiple doctors’ appointments and parental or marital consent, disinformation and the extension of conscientious objection from individual health personnel to entire institutions.

Sexual and reproductive health, including abortion procedures, is basic healthcare and should be easily accessible to all. Mexican feminists know this, and will continue fighting to change both policy and minds so nobody is denied access to their rights.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Parliamentarians Ask G7 Hiroshima Summit to Support Human Security and Vulnerable Communities

Parliamentarians attending the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit. Credit: APDA

Parliamentarians attending the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, May 9 2023 (IPS)

Parliamentarians from more than 30 countries agreed to send a strong message to the G7 Hiroshima Summit in Japan later this year, focusing on human security and support of vulnerable communities, including women, girls, youth, aging people, migrants, and indigenous people, among others.


The wide-ranging declaration also called on governments to support active political and economic participation for women and girls, enhancing and implementing legislation that addresses gender-based violence (GBV) and eradicating harmful practices like child, early, and forced marriages. During discussions and in the declaration, a clear message emerged that budgetary requirements for Universal Health Care (UHC) should be prioritized and the exceptional work done by health workers during the pandemic be recognized.

In his keynote address, Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio reminded delegates that Covid-19 had exposed the “fragility of the global health architecture and underscored the need for UHC.”

Kishida said that the central vision of the G7 Hiroshima Summit was to emphasize the importance of addressing human security – through building global health architecture, including the “governance for prevention, preparedness, and response to public health crises, including finance. We believe it is important for the G7 to actively and constructively contribute to efforts to improve international governance, secure sustainable financing and strengthen international norms.”

Apart from contributing to resilient, equitable, and sustainable UHC, health innovation was needed to promote a “more effective global ecosystem to enable rapid research and development and equitable access to infectious disease crisis medicines … and to support aging society,” Kishida said.

Former Prime Minister of Japan Fukuda Yasuo, Chair of APDA, and Honorary Chair of JPFP said this conference and its declaration would follow in a tradition of delivering strong messages to the G7 that improving reproductive health was crucial to the development and the future of a planet which now had 8 million people living on it.

“International Community is becoming increasingly confrontational and divided, and there is the emergence of a national leader who is threatening the use of nuclear weapons. No nuclear weapons have been used in the nearly 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must work together to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, which can take many precious lives and people’s daily lives. In this instance, I would like you to search for the path toward appeasement and not division. We must keep all channels of dialogue open so as to ease tension,” Fukuda asked of the conference.

While calling on parliamentarians to work together to address challenges, Fukuda also expressed concern about the widening inequities caused by Covid-19 and climate change and noted: “This network of parliamentarians on population and development has been a vital resource for parliamentarians who share the same concern for not only their own countries but for the entire planet and future generations.”

Kamikawa Yoko, MP Japan, Chair of JPFP, said that with a world population of 8 billion, it was essential to “realize a society where no one is left behind … and Japan would share its experiences of being on the frontlines of an aging society with declining birth rates. “We are living in an aging society … and given these challenges in Japan, we will try to share with you our experience and lessons through our diplomacy while trying to deepen our discussions and exchanges to seek solutions.”

Japan’s Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa said it was essential for all to cooperate during the “Anthropocene era, when human activities have promised to have a major impact on the global environment, global issues that transcend national borders, such as climate change, and the spread of infectious diseases, including Covid-19 are becoming more and more prevalent.”

He reminded the delegates that at the center of Japan’s economic growth post World War II was mainly through health promotion and employment policies.

Delegates of the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit agreed to send a strong message on human security to the Summit. Credit: APDA

Delegates of the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit agreed to send a strong message on human security to the Summit. Credit: APDA

Director of the Division for Communications and Strategic Partnerships of UNFPA, Ian McFarlane, said it was not about the “numbers of people but the rights of the people that matter. It’s not about whether we are too many or too few, but whether women and girls can decide if, when, and how many children to have.”

A recent UNFPA report indicated that nearly half of the women across the globe could not exercise their rights and choices, their bodily autonomy, and expressed hope that policies in the future continue to focus on humanity and universal human rights.

Despite being close to the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the conference heard that much still needed to be done regarding women’s rights.

New Zealand MP and co-chair of AFPPD Standing Committee on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, Angela Warren-Clark, reminded the audience that women still only held 26 percent of parliamentarian seats globally. While women make up 70 percent of the workforce in the health sector, only 25 percent have senior leadership positions.

“It is women in this pandemic who bore the increased burden of unpaid work at home as schools were closed, and it is girls and the poorest families who were taken out of school and forced into early marriages … We believe that if women had an equal say in decision-making during the pandemic, some of these mistakes would have been avoided.”

Baroness Elizabeth Barker, MP from the United Kingdom, told parliamentarians their role was to ensure that “no person on earth, from the head of G7 country to a poor person in a village, can say that they do not know what gender equality is. And they do not know what gender violence is.”

Barker suggested they use international standards, like the Istanbul Convention on Violence Against Women, to compare countries. “And you know that if your country doesn’t come out very well, they really don’t like it.”

She pointed to two successes in the UK, including stopping virginity testing and tackling the practice of forced marriages. She also warned the delegates that there was a right-wing campaign aimed at destroying human rights gained, and they chose different battlegrounds. The overturning of abortion rights in the United States in the Roe vs. Wade case was an example, as was the anti-LGBTQ legislation in Uganda.

Hassan Omar, MP from Djibouti, gave a host of achievements in his country, including ensuring that women occupy 25 percent roles in politics and the state administration and the growing literacy of women numbers in his country.

Risa Hontiveros, MP Philippines, painted a bleak picture of the impact of Covid in her country.

Hontiveros said GBV increased during Covid and extended to the digital space.

“The Internet has become a breeding ground for predators and cyber criminals to prey on children, especially young women, and girls. The online sexual abuse and exploitation of children … has become so prevalent in the Philippines that we have been tagged as the global hotspot.”

In a desperate attempt to provide for their families, even parents produced “exploitative material of their own children and sold them online to pedophiles abroad.”

To address these, she filed a gender-responsive and inclusive Emergency Management Act bill, which seeks to address the gender-differentiated needs of women and girls, because they were “disproportionately affected in times of emergencies.”

Former MP from Afghanistan Khadija Elham’s testimony united many in the conference and even resulted in proposals from the floor to include a condemnation of the Taliban’s women’s policies.

Elham said GBV had increased since the Taliban took over – women were forced to wear a burqa in public, they were not allowed to work, and those who wish to “learn science or (get an) education are forced to continue their studies and hidden places like basements.”

If their secret schools are exposed, they face torture and imprisonment. During the last two months, 260 people, including 50 women, were publicly whipped – a clear violation of their human rights. Women’s representation in political life has been banned, and women are no longer allowed to work in NGOs – and it has been “550 days since women could attend high schools and universities.”

She called on the international community, the United Nations, to pressure the Taliban to restore women’s work and education rights.

Nakayama Maho, Director of the Peacebuilding Program at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, announced new research on factors contributing to men’s propensity to GBV. The research found that the higher a man’s educational attainment, the lower the level of violence. There were also lower levels of violence with “positive” masculinity – such as a man being employed, married, and capable of protecting his family. Men who experienced violence during times of conflict tended to support violence to instill discipline, or protect women and communities.

Dr Roopa Dhatt, Executive Director of Women in Global Health, summed up this critical session by saying, “Equal leadership for women in all fields is a game changer, particularly in politics and health.”

Japan’s Health, Labour and Welfare Minister, Kato Katsunobu, noted during his closing address that the G7 countries “share the recognition that investment in people is not an expense, but an investment… and as you invest in people you can create a virtuous cycle between workers well-being and social and economic activities.”

He said Japan had a lot to offer concerning aging populations.

“Japan has been promoting the establishment of a comprehensive community-based care system so that people can continue to live in their own way in their own neighborhood until the end of their lives and is in the position to provide knowledge to the G7 countries and other countries who will be facing (an aging population) in the future.”

Dr Alvaro Bermejo, Director-General of IPPF, commended the conference and said he was “thankful” that the conference declaration would tell G7 governments to set an example. “Marginalized and excluded populations are at the heart of human security and can only be achieved in solidarity, and that message from this conference is clear.”

Professor Takemi Keizo, MP Japan, Chair of AFPPD, summed up the proceeding by saying that parliamentarians as representatives of the electorate were vital to creating a “positive momentum in this global community and overcoming so many difficult issues.”

Takemi elaborated on some issues facing the world now, including climate change and military conflicts, but as parliamentarians, there was the opportunity to “build up the new basis of the global governance, which can be very beneficial.”

NOTE: Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), and the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP).

It was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Japan Trust Fund (JTF), and Keidanren-Japan Business Federation in cooperation with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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Three Ways to End Gender-based Violence

Civil Society, Featured, Gender, Gender Violence, Global, Headlines, Health, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations, Women’s Health

Opinion

Testing new approaches for preventing gender-based violence to galvanize more and new partners and resources. Credit: UN Women

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 30 2022 (IPS) – How are the multiple shocks and crises the world is facing changing how we respond to gender-based violence? Almost three years after the COVID-19 pandemic triggered high levels of violence against women and girls, the recent Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum 2022 (SVRI) shed some light on the best ways forward.


Bringing together over 1,000 researchers, practitioners, policymakers and activists in Cancún, Mexico, the forum highlighted new research on what works to stop and address one of the most widespread violations of human rights.

While some participants candidly – and bravely – shared that their initiatives did not have the intended impact, many discussed efforts that transformed lives, in big and small ways.

After 5 days of the forum one thing was clear; a lack of evidence is not what is standing in the way of achieving a better future. It is a lack of opportunities and the will to apply that evidence.

Among the many shared findings, UNDP presented its own evidence.

Since 2018, the global project on Ending Gender-based Violence and Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a partnership between UNDP and the Republic of Korea, and in collaboration with United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, has tested new approaches for preventing and addressing gender-based violence, to galvanize more and new partners, resources, and support to move from rhetoric to action.

Three key strategies have emerged.

1. We need to integrate

Gender-based violence (GBV) intersects with all areas of sustainable development. That means that every development initiative provides a chance to address the causes of violence and to transform harmful social norms that not only put women disproportionately at risk for violence, but also limit progress.

Bringing together diverse partners to jointly incorporate efforts to end GBV into “non-GBV” programmes has been central to the Ending GBV and Achieving the SDGs project. Pilots in Indonesia, Peru and the Republic of Moldova integrated a GBV lens into local development planning.

The results were local action plans that focused on needs and solutions identified by the communities themselves, including evidence-based GBV prevention programming such as the Common Elements Treatment Approach, which has been proven to reduce violence along with risk factors such as alcohol abuse. This approach is growing, opening up new and more spaces for this work.

2. We need to elevate

While evidence is crucial to creating change, the work doesn’t stop there. We also need to elevate this evidence to policy makers and to support them in putting the findings into action. In our global project, we went about this in different ways.

In Peru women’s rights advocates and the local government worked together to draft a local action plan to address drivers of violence in the community of Villa El Salvador (VES). By working collaboratively and building trust between key players, the project was able to take a more holistic approach and to create stronger alliances to boost its sustainability and impacts.

In particular, the local action plan was informed by cost analysis research that showed that this approach would pay for itself if it prevented violence for only 0.6 percent of the 80,000-plus women in VES who are at risk for violence every year.

Since the pilot’s launch, more than 15 other local governments have expressed interest in the model, and it has already been replicated in three.

3. We need to finance

Less than 1 percent of bilateral official development assistance (ODA) and philanthropic funding is given to prevent and address GBV, despite the fact that roughly a third of women have experienced physical or sexual violence.

The “Imperative to Invest” study, funded by the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative and presented at the SVRI Forum, shows just what can be achieved with a US$500 million investment. The study highlights that Spotlight’s efforts will have prevented 21 million women and girls from experiencing violence by 2025.

The Ending GBV and Achieving the SDGs project also finds positive results when financing local plans. Through pilot initiatives in Peru, Moldova and Indonesia, it was possible to mobilize funds when different municipal governments take ownership of participatory planning processes at an early stage.

The local level is a key, yet an often overlooked, entry point to identifying community needs and, through participatory, multi-sectoral partnerships, to translate them into funded solutions.

In Moldova the regional government of Gagauzia assigned funds to create the region’s first safe space, with the support of the community.

The SVRI Forum was living proof that a better future is possible. It offered profound moments for thoughtful exchange, learning with partners and peers, and deepened our own reflections on the outcomes and next steps for this global project.

As we approach the final countdown to meeting the SDGs, including SDG5.2 on eliminating violence against women and girls, it has never been more urgent to take all this evidence and turn it into action against gender-based violence. Let’s act today.

Jacqui Stevenson is Research Consultant UNU International Institute for Global Health, Jessica Zimerman is Project Specialist, Gender-based Violence, UNDP, and Diego Antoni is Policy Specialist Gender, Governance and Recovery, UNDP.

Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

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Peruvian Women Still Denied Their Right to Abortion

Active Citizens, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Gender, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean, Regional Categories, TerraViva United Nations, Women’s Health

Women’s Health

Yomira Cuadros faced motherhood at an early age, as well as the obstacles of a sexist society like Peru’s, regarding her reproductive decisions. In the apartment where she lives with her family in Lima, she expresses faith in the future, now that she has finally started attending university, after having two children as a result of unplanned pregnancies. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Yomira Cuadros faced motherhood at an early age, as well as the obstacles of a sexist society like Peru’s, regarding her reproductive decisions. In the apartment where she lives with her family in Lima, she expresses faith in the future, now that she has finally started attending university, after having two children as a result of unplanned pregnancies. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

LIMA, Nov 18 2022 (IPS) – No woman in Peru should have to die, have her physical or mental health affected, be treated as a criminal or have an unwanted pregnancy because she does not have access to abortion, said Dr. Rocío Gutiérrez, an obstetrician who is the deputy director of the Manuela Ramos Movement, a non-governmental feminist center that works for gender rights in this South American country.


In this Andean nation of 33 million people, abortion is illegal even in cases of rape or fetal malformation. It is only legal for two therapeutic reasons: to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious and permanent health problem.

Peru thus goes against the current of the advances achieved by the “green wave”. Green is the color that symbolizes the changes that the women’s rights movement has achieved in the legislation of neighboring countries such as Uruguay, Colombia, Argentina and some states in Mexico, where early abortion has been decriminalized. These countries have joined the ranks of Cuba, where it has been legal for decades.

“I didn’t tell my parents because they are very Catholic and would have forced me to go through with the pregnancy, they always instilled in me that abortion was a bad thing. But I started to think about how pregnancy would change my life and I didn’t feel capable of raising a child at that moment.” — Fatima Guevara

But Latin America remains one of the most punitive regions in terms of abortion, with several countries that do not recognize women’s right to make decisions about their pregnancies under any circumstances. In El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Haiti it is illegal under all circumstances, and in some cases draconian penalties are handed down.

In the case of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru and Venezuela, meanwhile, abortion is allowed under very few conditions, while there are more circumstances under which it is legal in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador.

“In Peru an estimated 50,000 women a year are treated for abortion-related complications in public health facilities,” Dr. Gutiérrez told IPS. “This is not the total number of abortions in the country, but rather the number of women who reach public health services due to emergencies or complications.”

The obstetrician spoke to IPS from Buenos Aires, where she participated in the XV Regional Conference on Women, held Nov. 7-11 in the Argentine capital.

Gutiérrez explained that the cases attended are just the tip of the iceberg, because for every abortion complicated by hemorrhage or infection treated at a health center, at least seven have been performed that did not present difficulties.

Multiplying by seven the 50,000 cases treated due to complications provides the shocking figure of 350,000 unsafe clandestine abortions performed annually in Peru.

The doctor regretted the lack of official statistics about a phenomenon that affects the lives and rights of women “irreversibly, with damage to health, and death.”

Gutiérrez said that another of the major impacts is the criminalization of women who undergo abortions, due to mistreatment by health personnel who not only judge and blame them, but also report them to the police.

Obstetrician Rocío Gutiérrez (C), deputy director of the feminist Manuela Ramos Movement, stands with two fellow activists holding green scarves – representing the struggle for reproductive rights - during the XV Regional Conference on Women held this month in the city of Buenos Aires. CREDIT: Courtesy of Rocío Gutiérrez

Obstetrician Rocío Gutiérrez (C), deputy director of the feminist Manuela Ramos Movement, stands with two fellow activists holding green scarves – representing the struggle for reproductive rights – during the XV Regional Conference on Women held this month in the city of Buenos Aires. CREDIT: Courtesy of Rocío Gutiérrez

Under article 30 of Peru’s General Health Law, No. 26842, a physician who attends a case of presumed illegal abortion is required to file a police report.

Gutiérrez also referred to the fact that unwanted pregnancies have numerous consequences for the lives of women, especially girls and adolescents, in a sexist country like Peru, where women often do not have the right to make decisions on their sexuality and reproductive health.

Healing the wounds of unwanted motherhood

By the age of 19, Yomira Cuadros was already the mother of two children. She did not plan either of the pregnancies and only went ahead with them because of pressure from her partner.

In 2020, according to official data, 8.3 percent of adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 were already mothers or had become pregnant in Peru.

Cuadros, whose parents are both physicians and who lives in a middle-class family, said she never imagined that her life would turn out so differently than what she had planned.

“The first time was because I didn’t know about contraceptives, I was 17 years old. The second time the birth control method failed and I thought about getting an abortion, but I couldn’t do it,” Cuadros told IPS.

At the time, she was in a relationship with an older boyfriend on whom she felt very emotionally dependent. “I had made a decision (to terminate the pregnancy), but he didn’t want to, he told me not to, the pressure was like blackmail and out of fear I went ahead with the pregnancy,” she said.

Making that decision under coercion hurt her mental health. Today, at the age of 26, she reflects on the importance of women being guaranteed the conditions to freely decide whether they want to be mothers or not.

Peruvian activists go topless to demand the right to legal abortion, during a demonstration in the streets of the capital on Mar. 8, 2018. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Peruvian activists go topless to demand the right to legal abortion, during a demonstration in the streets of the capital on Mar. 8, 2018. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

In her case, although she had the support of her mother to get a safe abortion, the power of her then-partner over her was stronger.

“Becoming a mother when you haven’t planned to is a shock, you feel so alone, it is very difficult. I didn’t feel that motherhood was something beautiful and I didn’t want to experience the same thing with my second pregnancy, so I considered terminating it,” she said.

Finding herself in that unwanted situation, she fell into a deep depression and was on medication, and is still in therapy today.

“I went from being a teenager to an adult with responsibilities that I never imagined. It’s as if I have never really gone through the proper mourning process because of everything I had to take on, and I know that it will continue to affect me because I will never stop being a mother,” she said.

She clarified that “it’s not that I don’t want to be a mother or that I hate my children,” and added that “as I continue to learn to cope, I will get better, it’s just that it wasn’t the right time.”

She and her two children, ages nine and seven, live with her parents and brother in an apartment in the municipality of Pueblo Libre, in the Peruvian capital. She has enrolled at university to study psychology and accepts the fact that she will only see her dreams come true little by little.

“Things are not how I thought they would be, but it’s okay,” she remarked with a newfound confidence that she is proud of.

Gutiérrez said more than 60 percent of women in Peru have an unplanned pregnancy at some point in their lives, and argued that the government’s family planning policies fall far short.

The National Institute of Statistics and Informatics reported that the total fertility rate in Peru in 2021 would have been 1.3 children on average if all unwanted births had been prevented, compared to the actual rate of 2.0 children – almost 54 percent higher than the desired fertility rate.

“There are a set of factors that lead to unwanted pregnancies, such as the lack of comprehensive sex education in schools, and the lack of birth control methods and timely family planning for women in all their diversity, which worsened during the pandemic. And of course, the correlate is access to legal and safe abortion,” said Gutiérrez.

She lamented that little or no progress has been made in Peru in relation to the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights, including access to safe and free legal abortion, despite the struggle of feminist organizations and movements in the country that have been demanding decriminalization in cases of rape, artificial insemination without consent, non-consensual egg transfer, or malformations incompatible with life.

University student Fátima Guevara decided to terminate an unwanted pregnancy when she was 19 years old. Four years later, she is sure that it was the right decision, in terms of her plans for her life. The young woman told her story at a friend's home, where she was able to talk about it openly, in Lima, Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

University student Fátima Guevara decided to terminate an unwanted pregnancy when she was 19 years old. Four years later, she is sure that it was the right decision, in terms of her plans for her life. The young woman told her story at a friend’s home, where she was able to talk about it openly, in Lima, Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

The obscurity of illegal abortion

The obscurity surrounding abortion led Fátima Guevara, when she faced an unwanted pregnancy at the age of 19, to decide to use Misoprostol, a safe medication that is included in the methods accepted by the World Health Organization for the termination of pregnancies.

“I didn’t tell my parents because they are very Catholic and would have forced me to go through with the pregnancy, they always instilled in me that abortion was a bad thing. But I started to think about how pregnancy would change my life and I didn’t feel capable of raising a child at that moment,” she told IPS in a meeting at a friend’s home in Lima.

She said that she and her partner lacked adequate information and obtained the medication through a third party, but that she used it incorrectly. She turned to her brother who took her to have an ultrasound first. “Hearing the fetal heartbeat shook me, it made me feel guilty, but I followed through with my decision,” she added.

After receiving proper instructions, she was able to complete the abortion. And today, at the age of 23, about to finish her psychology degree, she has no doubt that it was the right thing to do.

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How Collective Action Can Move the Needle on Gender Equality

Active Citizens, Conferences, Development & Aid, Education, Gender, Global, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, TerraViva United Nations, Women & Climate Change, Women’s Health

Opinion

Delegates take a group photo at the Young Leaders & Alumni Workshop at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Credit: Isabella Sarmiento

NEW YORK, Mar 18 2022 (IPS) – During this year’s sixty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66), we are eager to see the global community pivot towards more inclusive approaches to advocacy. It’s imperative to put the spotlight on women’s rights and youth-led organizations in communities that are often left out of key discussions. By handing the mic over to advocates across all backgrounds and ages, we can shift to a model that enables all advocates to take a lead role in policy-making and ultimately translate promises and rhetoric into real impact and accountability.


Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ways that the global community works together to push for inclusive progress toward gender equality — progress that fully and effectively engages and equally benefits everyone — are fundamentally changing. Private conversations between the organizations and people with the resources and privilege to access the halls of power have given way to hybrid events and videoconferences that are open to a more diverse, intergenerational set of stakeholders than ever before. This significant shift began to open the doors to more inclusive partnerships.

Also, during these past two years, a global reckoning called on us all to meaningfully transform our advocacy, practices, and programs. International development organizations, including our own, took a long, overdue look in the mirror, and in some cases, began the deep learning and unlearning needed to acknowledge the persistent power imbalances that plague our sector at large. It’s a first step in living up to the values of equity and inclusion — not just on paper, but in practice.

As the world as we know it changed, we were hard at work changing, too. We began actively leveraging our power and influence more intentionally than ever before to center the work and expertise of women’s rights and youth-led organizations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Now, we are digging deeper to find and use new tools that enable advocates to co-create and co-lead by themselves so that our work and the Women Deliver 2023 Conference (WD2023) is more inclusive, diverse, consultative, and accessible than ever before.

Young gender equality advocates kick off the Youth Zone at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Credit: This Is It Studios

In “calling us in” and championing our ability to foster more inclusive partnerships across all of our programs, we are taking action to effectively and authentically advocate for, with, and alongside girls and women everywhere, in all their intersecting identities, to catalyze lasting progress on gender equality.

Transforming ourselves is of course a continuous process. Each day, we are learning to do better and to be better. We hope that our key learnings, below, can support our development colleagues, wherever they find themselves on their journey.

1. Accessibility and inclusion must lead the way — in-person and virtually.

    According to expert studies, organizations and individuals from LMICs are often under-represented at global health convenings. From day one, it’s urgent to intentionally engage those who have historically been excluded. In planning WD2023, we have leveraged the lessons of the past two years and from prior Women Deliver Conferences. We used an open application to select one-third of our Conference Advisory Group — a diverse panel with a balance of technical expertise. Our advisors represent 30 organizations — 10 individuals are from youth or youth-led organizations and 35 are from LMICs. We have done this to ensure that the Conference is co-created from the start by organizations and individuals representing the intersectional identities of the girls and women we work with and for.

    We meet regularly via videoconference with our Advisory Group to co-create the Conference’s Global Dialogue, theme, programming, and more, with support from social impact design experts at IDEO.org. IDEO also supports us as we carry out targeted discussions with specific stakeholder groups, including Women Deliver Young Leaders and Alumni, Deliver for Good Country Coalitions, and Conference Sponsors and Funders.

    In planning how to shape the dialogue, foster collaboration, and drive collective action before, during, and after the Conference, we’re working with our partners to ensure that all Conference advocacy spaces, be they digital or physical, are accessible to all. This includes low-bandwidth options, closed captioning, interpretation in multiple languages, and International Sign Language. On-site, we will also provide trauma-informed specialists, breastfeeding/nursing stations, child safeguarding support, and mental health specialists.

Mme Safiétou Diop, President of Réseau Siggil Jigeen speaking at a press conference during the launch of the Deliver for Good Senegal Campaign in Dakar, Senegal in 2019.

2. Move from meaningful youth engagement to co-leadership and intergenerational action.

    It’s time to follow the lead of young people, shift away from top-down approaches, and actively provide resources for robust youth co-leadership. According to global consensus, young people have a fundamental right to actively and meaningfully engage in all matters that affect their lives. For international development organizations, this means offering space, support, and compensation that youth need and deserve to co-create a more-gender equal future — a future from which they have the most to gain and to lose.

    We created the 14-person Young Leaders Program Alumni Committee, with an honorarium for their valuable expertise, to advise us on strategy and implementation of the Young Leaders Program and ideate youth co-creation opportunities. This committee provides invaluable guidance to ensure the Young Leaders Program models meaningful youth engagement and co-leadership, and effectively meets the needs of Young Leaders on the ground.

    Women Deliver also hosts Multi-Country Workshops to foster capacity strengthening, knowledge sharing, and coordinated advocacy on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality. Starting in 2021, these workshops are now designed and led by a Young Leader Planning Committee representing the regions where the workshops take place. They are in the driver’s seat as they craft workshop content and programming, while Women Deliver provides logistical support and the virtual space to gather. This co-created process has led to more targeted — and impactful — workshops that cater to Young Leaders’ specific needs and build capacity in the issue areas where it’s most needed.

Delegates taking a group photo on stage at the Deliver for Good Campaign side event “Leveraging National Movements for Global Change” at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

3. Elevate diverse voices and support organizations working on the ground.

    Incusion and participation have to be integrated into the mission of development work, not a one-off tactic or strategy. Diverse, resilient feminist and women’s rights organizations and movements are – and must always be positioned as – the key drivers of change for gender equality and women’s rights across the globe.

    Over the past two years, we have stepped back to shift power across every aspect of our organization’s activities, policies, programs, and behaviors, into the hands of the youth and women’s rights groups most impacted by our work. For example, in 2020, in partnership with Girl Effect, as well as with young people themselves, we worked to understand how youth in India, Malawi, and Rwanda use digital platforms to learn about their sexual and reproductive health (SRHR). This project was designed and executed by more than 160 adolescent girls and young women, who worked hand in hand with researchers on the ground in India, Malawi, and Rwanda to conduct interviews within their own communities, as well as to design questions, discuss results, and generate recommendations. Moving forward, we must involve girls and women in all aspects of data collection and evidence generation that impacts them. This will ensure that the local knowledge and skills needed to drive sustainable change in their own communities, regions, and countries are an integral part of effective advocacy and decision-making.

    We’re now handing the pen directly to Young Leaders and spotlighting the work of youth-led organizations during key advocacy moments. Last year, the Deliver for Good Campaign organized its first ever Continental Conversation — an idea conceived by partners in Kenya and Senegal — as a way to work together towards gender equality in the region. What was first envisioned as a one-off peer-to-peer sharing opportunity via videoconference became understood as a vital, first-of-its-kind Continental Conversation to bridge divides — some of which had never been crossed. Together, the Campaign’s country partners shared their own experiences, lessons, challenges, and successes in advancing gender equality, laying the groundwork for a cross-regional peer-to-peer learning model with the power to accelerate progress on girls’ and women’s health and rights in Kenya, in Senegal, and around the world.

    Over the past year, we have also co-convened multi-sectoral coalitions with diverse partners representing the intersectional identities of girls and women. For example, as part of the SRHR & Climate Justice Coalition, we’re working on collective action and coordinated advocacy in partnership with more than 60 representatives from a wide range of civil society organizations. The Coalition is working to advance SRHR and gender equality in the context of climate change from an intersectional and climate justice approach.

    The Coalition emerged from the need to break down silos between the SRHR and Climate Justice organizations and movements, facilitate knowledge sharing, jointly mobilize, and amplify the voices and priorities of grassroots organizations. These organizations are led by girls and women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and Indigenous people from LMICs, particularly those most affected by climate change and without continuous access to high-quality SRH services. The Coalition is currently raising awareness of the interlinkages of SRHR and climate change in order to ensure SRHR is a key part of climate change conversations and action strategies ahead of key policy moments, such as CSW66 and COP27.

4. Collect and present data that accurately represents the diverse needs of all girls and women.

    Sustainable progress — and lasting change — will take all of us. Over the past two years, we’ve focused on connecting advocates working across different issue areas and collecting gender-disaggregated data. The data is broken down into the many factors that shape people’s lives, including race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, and socioeconomic class in order to drive collective action, the mainstay of transformative change. We also need to engage with data scientists from regions most impacted by this research.

    Last year, we partnered with Focus 2030 to carry out a survey of 17 countries on six continents — representing half of the world’s population. An overwhelming majority said they support gender equality, believe that women should be fully engaged in charting our path forward, and expect leaders – political and in business – to take meaningful action to bridge the gender divide. In centering the voices of citizens, we were able to effectively advocate for bigger, bolder commitments by governments and the private sector, ahead of the Generation Equality Forum.

As Women Deliver evolves and grows, we will continue to call upon our partners and funders, including in the private sector, to ensure that the international development world champions and secures robust, feminist funding and resources for women’s rights organizations, youth, and other marginalized communities. We hope you will join us in leveraging the changes set into motion during the pandemic and the global reckoning in our sector. Let’s work together to bridge existing divides and form inclusive partnerships — between countries, sectors, and generations.

The authors are Kathleen Sherwin (CEO/President), Divya Mathew (Director, Policy & Advocacy), Julia Fan (Senior Manager, Youth Engagement), Gretchen Gasteier (Manager, Conference), Rachel Elliott (Senior Associate, Communications) of Women Deliver

IPS UN Bureau

 

Youths Trailblazing Paths in Sexual and Reproductive Health Ahead of ICFP Family Planning Conference

Featured, Gender, Global, Headlines, Population, Poverty & SDGs, TerraViva United Nations, Women’s Health, Youth Thought Leaders

Youth Thought Leaders

Youth activists Peace Umanah, from Nigeria and Aurelia Naa Adjeley Sowah-Mensah from Ghana ensure that young people are made aware of their Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights. Credit: ICFP

Nairobi, Kenya, Mar 16 2022 (IPS) – Travelling in northern Nigeria, Peace Umanah noticed teenage girls with multiple children – they would be walking with one strapped to their back, holding another by hand and with a protruding belly.


“These were worrisome sights that got me thinking about whether these young girls knew about contraceptive choices or if they were not given information to make beneficial decisions.”

The same question weighed heavily on young Aurelia Naa Adjeley Sowah-Mensah from Ghana, who grew up in a community where teenage pregnancies are common – mirroring the situation in many developing countries.

These questions set the young women on a trailblazing path to change the trajectory of adolescent and teenage pregnancies in their countries.

The pair have joined forces with other young people, world leaders and actors in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) to give young people in every corner of the world much-needed tools to navigate their sexuality. They hope to remove SRHR-related challenges to enable young women to benefit from socio-economic growth and development opportunities.

“Through the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) Youth Trailblazer Award, young leaders in the field of family planning and SRHR aged 18-35 years old were invited to submit creative short videos that integrate this year’s conference theme,” says Jose G Rimon II, director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Jose G Rimon II, director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Credit: ICFP

Rimon II, who is also the chair of ICFP’s International Steering Committee, tells IPS the videos “also highlighted youth perspectives, experiences, and voices in family planning and SRHR”.

The videos reflected the conference’s theme: ‘Universal Health Coverage and Family Planning: Innovate, Collaborate, Accelerate’.

Sowah-Mensah and Umanah were among 50 youth leaders working in family planning and SRHR awarded scholarships to attend ICFP this year in Pattaya City, Thailand, on November 14-17, 2022.

Other award winners include Tanaka Chirombo from Malawi, Alison Hoover from Atlanta, USA, and Muhammad Sarim (Saro) Imram from Pakistan.

Awardees are from countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, selected from a pool of more than 300 youth worldwide who applied for the Youth Trailblazer Award. The award recognises youth leadership and innovation in family planning and SRHR.

“Selected youth demonstrated strong ideas and commitment, creative thinking that pushed the field forward and challenged norms, and successfully conveyed a clear and powerful message,” says Rimon II.

Youth Trailblazer Award winners will be integrated throughout the ICFP, the world’s largest scientific conference on family planning and reproductive health, to amplify and highlight the voices of young leaders globally, he adds.

“Awardees will actively participate in planning activities for the ICFP, including integral participation on the ICFP subcommittee(s) of their choice, engagement as speakers and moderators at sessions, as well as other conference engagement opportunities that will magnify the voices, perspectives, and experiences of the youth.”

Youth participation will bring to life ICFP’s stance that countries’ universal health coverage packages should include youth-friendly family planning and SRH products and services.

“As of 2021, the modern contraceptive prevalence rate shows only 17 percent of all women of reproductive age in Nigeria use contraceptives,” Umanah says.

In the absence of youth-friendly services, myths and misconceptions influence young people’s understanding of contraceptives. She says they sometimes use lime, soda, antibiotics, and salt to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Adolescent and teenage pregnancies are the most pressing issues. Consequences include life-threatening health complications and the risk of missing out on lifelong learning and earning opportunities.

According to government statistics, one in every five girls in Kenya between the ages of 15 to 19 is either pregnant or already a mother. Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death for 15- to 19-year-old girls in this East African nation.

As a youth champion engaging adolescents and young people, Umanah says the cohort needs safe spaces free of stigma and judgment, where they can find answers and solutions to their SRHR needs.

“For young women and girls, being able to speak up and be heard is critical. Social media tools, such as 9ja Girls Now, gives girls a platform to get connected across distances,” Umanah observes.

“9ja Girls is a Facebook platform and a safe space where girls learn and ask questions about love, life and health and find answers.”

Sowah-Mensah is an SRHR mentor of adolescent girls and young women under the Girl Boss initiative with the Youth Action Movement (YAM) of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana.

Without support, Sowah-Mensah says, “some girls exchange sex for food or money, ending up in unplanned pregnancies. To avoid stigma, they turn to unsafe ways (to terminate the pregnancy), such as grinding and consuming glass bottles or drinking a mixture of sugar and alcohol. Some lose their lives.”

A dedicated ICFP Youth Pre-conference will take place November 11-13 to support youth leaders and their programmatic work, advocacy, and research.

Rimon II says youth involvement is the “best way to ensure diverse voices are heard and strategies are developed that are sustainable, inclusive, culturally competent and representative of sexual and reproductive health and rights at the global level.”

SRHR youth experts such as Sowah-Mensah and Umanah agree.

Sowah-Mensah says young people are the demographic majority and a powerful instrument for development because they have many innovative ideas.

“But a large percentage of our leaders are not young and are thus unable to address young people’s most pressing needs for SRHR services. You have one generation making bodily autonomy decisions on behalf of a totally different generation,” she says.

The awardees assert that the status quo must change to achieve a desirable outcome. Umanah says, “In designing solutions to challenges that face adolescent girls and young women, their concerns and voices should be the loudest. They should lead conversations towards desired solutions.”

ICFP is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins University and more than two dozen other public, private, and non-profit sponsors, including the World Health Organization and United Nations Population Fund.

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IPS UN Bureau Report

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