This is the report from a ground-breaking workshop on sexual rights held in Sweden. Some of the key issues discussed included who defines a right and how they are defined, going beyond identity politics sexuality and morality regarding women, men and transgendered people who sell sex for money.
Values, Policies and Rights
Making the links: sexuality, rights and development
Expert Group on Development Issues, June 2006
The human rights-based approach: A distilled inventory of its essential attributes
Schuftan C: People\'s Health Exchange, 15 August 2006
The document recaps what it means to apply a holistic rights-based lens in development practice, be it in health, in education or in any other sector. It directs us to the corresponding behaviors one would expect to see enacted in health, education or any other development work when applying such an optic. The points within the document present when and under what conditions the adoption of an explicit rights-based approach is more likely to make a lasting difference to equity.
Further details: /newsletter/id/31689
Shaping the future of social protection: Access, financing and solidarity
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC): Eldis, 6 July 2006
The starting point for this study is the principle that a rights-based approach should be used in framing public policy. The study therefore seeks to address the challenge of combining the ethical aspect of social rights with viable ways of strengthening citizens' entitlement to such rights in highly inequitable and relatively poor societies. It includes an analysis of various aspects of social protection systems (health care, social security and poverty reduction) and their potential to guarantee social rights in structurally heterogeneous societies.
Negotiating sexual and reproductive health
Molesworth K: Bulletin of Medicus Mundi Switzerland 100, April 2006
he United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other organisations working to achieve the goal of universal access to reproductive health have to negotiate highly sensitive and embedded beliefs and practices. In certain contexts challenging female genital cutting, child marriage and instituting gender equity, access to contraception, sexual and reproductive health and information are highly contentious issues. Rather than perceiving cultural perspectives to constrain positive social change, UNFPA’s Culture Matters approach illustrates how development actors might work sensitively with the dynamics of culture to enhance the achievement of development objectives and human rights within a variety of social, cultural and spiritual settings.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights
Eldis Health Resources Guide
This key issues guide reviews current policy issues relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), examining questions of definition and exploring key debates. The guide also highlights current and future challenges for attaining greater levels of sexual and reproductive well-being, and considers the role of innovative technologies and approaches in achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.
Stigma, discrimination and human rights
Wood k, Aggleton P: Thomas Coram Research Unit
All over the world, young people are stigmatised and discriminated against in relation to their sexual and reproductive health. Stigma, discrimination and the violation of human rights are intimately connected, reinforcing and
legitimising each other. Their manifestations are varied, occurring in families and communities, in health services, at places of work, and in schools.
Little done to counter rising abuse of schoolgirls
IRIN News
Violence against girls in Southern African schools is steadily rising, but not enough is being done to prevent and censure abuse in educational institutions. The incidence seems high because more girls are reporting cases of abuse in schools, founder and director of the Girl Child Network (GCN), a Zimbabwean rights NGO. But there are other reasons as well, such as the increasing incidence of poverty: girls from poor homes are lured by teachers with promises of cash. Even the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS is another reason - the myth that sex with a virgin can cure the disease is still very prevalent, and desperate men will do anything. One of the sobering realities highlighted at the gathering, organised jointly by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and ActionAid International to focus on the problem, was that girls in African schools are repirted to be three times more likely to be abused than boys.
Mainstreaming child rights in the UN system: What will it take for NGO child rights coalitions?
Eldis: Allen D
This report presents the results and analysis of a survey conducted to develop understanding of what NGOs and child rights coalitions would need in order to mainstream children's rights into the UN treaty body system. The survey found that NGO and child rights coalitions that report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child have not, for the most part, made purposeful ventures into the reporting processes of other treaty bodies. The research also illustrates that mainstreaming means different things in different contexts.
Right to health campaign in South Africa
People\'s Health Movement, 14 May 2006: Reynolds L, London L, Sanders D
PHM would like to invite civil society organizations, interested individuals and groups to participate in discussing the possibility of hosting such a campaign in South Africa. It would also contribute to building civil society for the Third People’s Health Assembly, planned for 2010 at an African venue (to be determined). This edition of Critical Health Perspectives sketches the background to the campaign and some of the thinking behind it.
Effectively linking MDGs and human rights in development work?
e-CIVICUS 288
The link between Human Rights and the MDGs is embodied in the Millennium Declaration. Through the Millennium Declaration, governments commit to the core values of freedom, equality, solidarity, peace, security and the rule of law. The MDGs, which serve as outcome indicators for the Declaration, are about realising human rights within a broader development framework. An e-discussion on these issues is now open and contributions are encouraged.