On September 22nd, during the 30th session of the Human Rights Council, we co-hosted a side event with the Sexual Rights Initiative (SRI) to discuss protection gaps around sexual rights. The five panelists discussed the nature and causes of existing protection gaps in sexual rights, and gave recommendations to further protections for all individuals in the field of sexuality.
We call on all States and this Council to recognise that violence against women is intrinsically linked to the imposition and exertion of power and maintaining the status quo, and that policies and laws to prevent violence against women should not only be geared towards protection, but also towards ensuring freedoms, including the freedom to decide on sexualities and bodily autonomy.
AWID spoke to Maria Consuelo Mejía, Executive Director of Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir México (Catholics for the Right to Decide, CDD-MX) about a successful and innovative approach they began using in their advocacy in 2012.
FRIDAY FILE: On January 31, president Michelle Bachelet sent a Bill to the Chilean Congress to decriminalize abortion on three grounds: fetal malformation, when the mother's life is at risk, and where pregnancy is the result of rape. AWID spoke to feminist activists about this Bill and other pending sexual and reproductive health rights issues in this South American country.
Her name is Suhair al-Bata’a. The 13-year-old Egyptian girl dreamt of one day becoming a journalist. In 2013, she was taken by her father to Dr Raslan Fadl Halawa’s clinic to undergo female genital mutilation, also known as FGM. She senselessly died at the hands of Halawa.
The North-South Institute’s Post-2015 Tracking Tool is an interactive aggregator of proposals on the post-2015 development agenda. Organized thematically, the tool helps tracking the goals, targets, and indicators that are being proposed to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and support and monitor development progress beyond 2015.
The Gender Equality section provides updated info on the proposals to date including external resources for each indicator
In 2003, Sylvia Tamale was named as the “Worst Woman of the Year” by a conservative bloc within Uganda. Working at the time as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at Makerere University (she later became its Dean), she was vilified for weeks within one of Kampala’s major daily newspapers, New Vision, as responsible for everything from the moral degeneration of the nation to the reason Ugandan teenagers were going to go to hell.
Jane Bennett, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town
Three initial cases against the government of Namibia have begun in the capital, Windhoek. The cases have been brought by HIV positive women who claim that they were sterilized in government hospitals without their consent. The women are suing the Ministry of Health and social services for what they term as a violation of their human rights and discrimination based on their health status.
By Alice Mutuma
FRIDAY FILE: Abortion rights currently dominate the constitutional reform debate in Kenya. What is the reality of abortion in the country?
By Kathambi Kinoti
Ever since the pro-democracy movement in Kenya gained momentum in the 1980s, the constitution has been an explosive issue in the country’s politics. Successive presidential and parliamentary candidates have made it a campaign issue, but due to a mix of ethnic, political and ideological factors, the constitution has never been overhauled. The last draft constitution was defeated in a referendum in 2005.