* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The world currently has the largest generation in history of adolescents and youth aged 10-24 years. On 27th April this year, during its 45th Session, the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD) adopted a landmark Resolution on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents and youth.
So what does this mean?
The CPD monitors governments’ implementation of population policies with respect to women’s reproductive rights. Making progress in the terrain of sexual and reproductive health and rights with a solid Resolution that guides national and international policy is a momentous step forward and the result of months of hard work by feminist and human rights activists and organizations such as the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice (RESURJ) and Amnesty International.
Founding members of RESURJ, Neha Sood and Alexandra Garita, call the Resolution “landmark” because, “for the first time in the history of the UN, governments have agreed to prioritize the 1.8 billion adolescents and young people’s human rights and health in development priorities… (The resolution) contains key elements that can eliminate barriers to accessing comprehensive sexuality education for adolescents and young people; it instructs health care providers to respect their privacy and confidentiality and provide them with comprehensive health services, including contraception, male and female condoms, safe abortion services where legal, and HIV/STI prevention and treatment. Most importantly, this resolution recognizes the right of adolescents (minors under the law) to have control over and decide freely on all matters related to their sexuality”.
What this implies is potentially significant progress on the capacity of adolescents and youth to make informed decisions about their SRHR, such as if, when, how, and with whom to have sex and their right to say “yes” or “no” to any sexual activity, relationships, marriage.
The Resolution is not without challenges however. Individual governments differ in their interpretation of concepts of reproductive and sexual rights established at Cairo and Beijing respectively, and limit their definition. There is also a clause in the text on national sovereignty, which in essence could trump everything contained in the resolution. Neha Sood from RESURJ explains that “there isn’t consensus on issues such as abortion, sex work, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sexuality education. This means that national movements have to continue to build public discourse and advocate for policy and programs that affirm rights related to these issues.”
Sexuality, sexual and reproductive health and rights are particularly complex for those who are discriminated against because they are unmarried, have a disability or are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI). Sood argues that “It would have been ideal for this resolution to recognize the discrimination and violence that adolescents and youth face in the family, community, schools, health institutions and national policy; and to commit to providing protection, fighting discrimination, reviewing laws, and training State personnel on these issues.”
As with any inter-governmental negotiation however, Garita explained, “the challenges are the reluctance of the majority of governments to willingly talk about and take seriously issues relating to sex and sexuality. This is particularly the case with some conservative governments, which seek to “protect” the concept of the “natural family”— i.e. husband, wife, and children with traditional divisions of labor, which continue to relegate women to their reproductive roles.”
Despite the challenges, women’s rights activists around the world hope to soon see this new Resolution having a real impact in young women’s lived realities. Sood argues that the Resolution “pressures governments to implement policies and programs on SRHR and gender equality; mobilizes investments in sexual and reproductive health, sexuality education and the empowerment of girls and young women; and it invigorates national movements for women and young people’s SRHR...”.
The resolution provides an opportunity for all of us, as women’s rights advocates in our own countries, to put the Resolution to the test and take it to the grassroots level so that youth and adolescents can use it to inform local political processes. Garita says there is evidence of this already happening “in a number of countries, where young women are using it to refuse early marriages, implement comprehensive sexuality education programs, distribute information to their peers, and claim their rights to know their bodies and their rights within health care services.”
We also need to use the resolution to pressure our governments to work harder to educate and empower girls and young women, provide quality sexual and reproductive health services and comprehensive sexuality education, and strengthen measures to achieve gender equality through policies and public education.
Neha Sood is right and others are right - this resolution is what we make of it – including a platform to build on in processes, such as ICPD+20, which reflects on the outcome of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development – a twenty-year Programme of Action where Governments agreed that all human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life without discrimination, and that promoting individual rights and dignity are paramount to economic growth and sustainable development. This is particularly important given the recent backsliding on SRHR at the recent Rio+20 conference.
What the resolution does is “give governments and feminists alike the energy and mandate to retain the Cairo and Beijing agreements and go even further to secure SRHR in the +20s to come.”
It is our responsibility now to carry this momentum forward.
