In just two months, world leaders will gather in Rio to hammer out a new set of agreements on what sustainable development means, and more importantly, how both rich and developing nations can get there before it’s too late. Day by day, the buzz is building around this historic Earth Summit. But there’s a problem: The big plans being hatched for the occasion — nicknamed Rio+20 — leave women out.
Of course there will be scores of women leaders at the Earth Summit. But key issues that matter to women — reproductive health, gender equality, girls’ education — are notable for their absence from the agenda. That needs to change.
"What we want is women to be able to make their own choices […] We want women to make their own choices in healthcare … Women don't need anyone to tell them what to do on healthcare. We want women to have their own choices, their own money, that way they can make their own choices for the future of their own bodies."
I couldn't have said it better myself. But to my surprise, these were not the words of Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama. Rather, they were uttered by Representative Michele Bachmann, on Sunday's Meet the Press during a segment about Obamacare. And while I am sure these words made her press secretary cringe, they made me take note of the way the notion of "choice" has recently crept into Republican talking points.
Much of the media coverage of the Summit of the Americas focused on the drug cartels and violence that affect several countries throughout the region. Just last week, the Washington Post ran a gritty photo series on violence in Honduras, where the murder rate is roughly 20 times that of the United States.
While violence presents a serious threat to human security, there is an equally pressing issue at hand that is rarely discussed: the health and well-being of Latin America's youth.
Today, March 26th, during the Third Intersessional meeting of the UNCSD — to discuss and prepare the outcome of Rio+20 in June– the Women’s Major Group delivered the following intervention:
Thank you Ms. Thompson, Mr Lalonde, for this opportunity of interaction.
I am Doris Mpoumou (with the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region), and I speak on behalf of the women’s major group. We, the Women’s Major Group, are deeply concerned, about the pace and state of the negotiations of the past week. Let me reword this: we are scandalized!
I was 22 years old and traveling alone in Mexico. I came to stay with a French-Canadian documentary filmmaker and his Mexican doctor wife, whom I'd met at a speaking event they held several months earlier at my university. We’ll call the doctor 'Cepoori'.
Inspired by the message of Che Guevara in her youth, Cepoori decided in her teens that she wanted to become a doctor and help the disenfranchised. Living in a small town several hours outside of Mexico City, Cepoori is one of the only Mexican doctors who is willing to break the law to provide a clandestine abortion to any woman who needs one, regardless of whether she is able to pay.
Fourteen years ago, Edilia Natera learned she was HIV-positive when her doctor ran blood tests during her pregnancy. What would be devastating news to any expecting mother was tantamount to a death sentence for Edilia.
“There wasn’t the same knowledge [in the Dominican Republic] in those days as there is now,” Natera remembers. “I didn’t have help.”
During childbirth, Natera’s baby came in contact with her blood and was born HIV-positive. “Now, if you’re pregnant, treatment starts right away. Doctors perform a Cesarean and you don’t breastfeed. If you follow all the instructions the doctor gives you, your baby may be born healthy. Mine wasn’t so lucky.” Natera’s baby died when she was just five years old.
This week, the World Bank reported that Latin America and Africa are the only two regions that have not met the Millennium Development Goal to reduce extreme poverty. Latin America may be the wealthiest region in the developing world on a per capita basis, but it also has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. Statistical averages across the region mask the existence of the significant inequality within it that hinders access to sexual and reproductive health services for the region's most vulnerable -- in particular, rural, poor, indigenous, and youth populations.
Sexual and reproductive health is fundamental to our overall well-being, and investment in sexual and reproductive health care holds enormous benefits for individuals and societies. The right of women and men to control their fertility and have reliable access to quality health services is at the center of contemporary reproductive health and sustainable development policies. Still, nearly half of sexually active young women in Latin America and the Caribbean have an unmet need for contraception.
Over the past few weeks, contraception has become a hot-button issue in American politics. After the Obama Administration began requiring employers to provide contraception in their health coverage, the Catholic Church fought back, saying the ruling runs against Church doctrine.
Pundits, activists and presidential hopefuls have been up in arms, despite the fact that 98 per cent of Catholic women in America say they have used some type of birth control.
On Friday, March 2, 2012 the Government of Canada, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), and the United Nations Foundation hosted a side event in support of Every Woman Every Child during the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The event articulated the links between this year’s CSW theme – the empowerment of rural women – and the goals of the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, and outlined the effort’s robust accountability framework and important role of stakeholders.
Dr. Carmen Barroso, a member of the independent Expert Review Group (iERG), articulated the effort’s accountability framework, and explained that the iERG will monitor the implementation of the COIA recommendations and submit its first report in September 2012. She provided examples of mechanisms already in place in Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where web-based reporting systems and alignment of national health plans, respectively, will help facilitate accountability. To ensure the highest levels of commitment to implementing the Global Strategy, the iERG has issued a call for evidence from all stakeholders to generate information on vulnerable and hard to reach groups including refugees, displaced populations, people living in occupied territories, young women and women seeking access to safe abortion.
A group of experts on gender issues convened by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) cited significant progress in the implementation of a gender equality policy that was developed by PAHO and endorsed by the ministers of health of the Americas. But the group also pointed to obstacles that still need to be overcome, including resistance to change and the lack of a coordinated approach to gender issues across U.N. agencies.
The Gender Equality in Health Technical Advisory Group (TAG) met for two days (Feb. 16–17) at PAHO headquarters to examine the results of a report on the implementation of the PAHO Gender Equality Policy, which was approved by PAHO’s 46th Directing Council in 2005. The group’s observations and recommendations will be incorporated into a revised version of the report, which will be presented to the PAHO Executive Committee in June and eventually to the Pan American Sanitary Conference in September 2012.
