Sexual Rights: Critical To Reproductive Health
By, Population Action International, March 5, 2007
Integrating sexual rights into family planning and reproductive health programs is essential to ensuring that people have safe and healthy sexual lives, according to a new report issued by the World Health Organization. This confirms what many sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates have known for years: A comprehensive, rights-based approach to reproductive health that includes non-judgmental, culture and gender sensitive services is the most effective way to improve reproductive health around the world. For the sake of their citizens, international governments and policy leaders need to heed the advice of this report and include sexual rights as a key component of all family planning and reproductive health programs.
Sexual rights should not be controversial: They include the right to choose a partner, and engage in consensual sexual relations and consensual marriage. The report, Defining Sexual Health: Report of a Technical Consultation on Sexual Health, states that reproductive health programs “must be accessible, affordable, confidential, of high quality, and age- and culture-appropriate.” People deserve to have the information, services and supplies necessary to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and to choose the number and spacing of their children. Nothing is gained when information is withheld—as is the case in some so-called abstinence-only programs, where information about condom use is conspicuously absent.
The Sexual Rights Campaign in South Africa is getting it right. The program, highlighted by the report, encourages policy makers to integrate sexual rights into their work addressing HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and adolescent reproductive health. Their success will allow them to witness the power of sexual rights: By creating reproductive health programs that respect the sexual rights of all people, regardless of their sex, age or background individuals and families live longer, happier, healthier lives.
This report builds on the groundbreaking International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which defined reproductive rights as including “the right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents.” But defining sexual rights is only the first step—it is political will that can make them a reality.
Source: http://www.populationaction.org/news/views/2007/03_05_SexualRights.htm
Integrating sexual rights into family planning and reproductive health programs is essential to ensuring that people have safe and healthy sexual lives, according to a new report issued by the World Health Organization. This confirms what many sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates have known for years: A comprehensive, rights-based approach to reproductive health that includes non-judgmental, culture and gender sensitive services is the most effective way to improve reproductive health around the world. For the sake of their citizens, international governments and policy leaders need to heed the advice of this report and include sexual rights as a key component of all family planning and reproductive health programs.
Sexual rights should not be controversial: They include the right to choose a partner, and engage in consensual sexual relations and consensual marriage. The report, Defining Sexual Health: Report of a Technical Consultation on Sexual Health, states that reproductive health programs “must be accessible, affordable, confidential, of high quality, and age- and culture-appropriate.” People deserve to have the information, services and supplies necessary to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and to choose the number and spacing of their children. Nothing is gained when information is withheld—as is the case in some so-called abstinence-only programs, where information about condom use is conspicuously absent.
The Sexual Rights Campaign in South Africa is getting it right. The program, highlighted by the report, encourages policy makers to integrate sexual rights into their work addressing HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and adolescent reproductive health. Their success will allow them to witness the power of sexual rights: By creating reproductive health programs that respect the sexual rights of all people, regardless of their sex, age or background individuals and families live longer, happier, healthier lives.
This report builds on the groundbreaking International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which defined reproductive rights as including “the right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents.” But defining sexual rights is only the first step—it is political will that can make them a reality.
Source: http://www.populationaction.org/news/views/2007/03_05_SexualRights.htm
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 1:11 pm
1 Comments:
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