The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called for gender equality to be comprehensively included in the UN’s post-2015 goals yesterday at the opening of the 57th Session of Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
“We believe there should be a stand-alone goal or goals on equality and non-discrimination that addresses all kinds of discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sex,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
In 2000, the UN announced its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — to reduce hunger and poverty, combat maternal and infant mortality, and provide access to universal education and health, among other goals — all to be accomplished by the end of 2015. It is now creating a post-2015 agenda to expand on the MDGs.
During her remarks, Pillay also encouraged the strengthening of all treaty bodies and celebrated the CEDAW Committee’s work so far, especially highlighting the achievements of CEDAW. During its current session, which runs until February 28, the CEDAW Committee will review reports from Bahrain, Cameroon, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Sierra Leone and Finland on these countries’ implementation of the treaty.
The African Union (AU) and the United Nations signed a landmark agreement last week committing to improving the prevention of and response to sexual violence, particularly conflict-related violence, in African countries.
The agreement aims to strengthen national policies, laws, and organizations already trying to combat sexual violence, and to train police forces and peacekeepers on prevention and best responses. It emphasizes the importance of providing rehabilitative services for survivors, countering the severe stigma that survivors of sexual violence often face, and ensuring that crimes are investigated and perpetrators are brought to justice.
“National ownership, leadership and responsibility are absolutely essential if we are to protect women and girls, but also men and boys, from these barbaric crimes,” said Zainab Bangura, the Special Representative on sexual Violence in Conflict. She co-signed the document with Ambassador Smail Chergui, of Algeria, Commissioner for Peace and Security of the African Union.
The UN and AU aim to work closely together on curbing sexual violence and other issues, such as economic development. “A solution cannot be imposed from above,” Bangura said.
Thousands of people marched to Spain’s parliament in Madrid on Saturday to protest a potential new law that would severely restrict women’s right to have an abortion.
The law, which was passed by Spain’s cabinet in December 2013, would allow abortion only in cases of rape or if the physical or psychological health of the mother is threatened, effectively banning it in all other circumstances. It would toughen conditions for aborting a deformed fetus, and it would require girls under 18 to obtain parental consent to have the procedure.
“I would never have imagined we would find ourselves back here, fighting for something we thought we had won,” protestor Maria Pilar Sanchez told Agence France-Presse.
The previous Socialist government legalized abortion before 14 weeks in 2010, but the current ruling party, the Popular Party, often sides with the Roman Catholic Church’s conservative views on abortion. The law awaits approval by Parliament, where the Popular Party holds a majority.
Protests were also held in London and cities across France.
Both houses of the Afghan Parliament have voted to pass an act that would prohibit relatives from testifying against a criminal defendant in a judicial proceeding. If signed by President Hamid Karzai, the proposed change to the Afghan criminal code would prevent family members from testifying as victims or witnesses in all criminal cases, including domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault cases. The act would also ban children and doctors – including those who may have examined victims – from testifying against the accused.
“It is a travesty this is happening,” said Manizha Naderi, Executive Director of Women for Afghan Women, which runs over two dozen shelters in 10 provinces of Afghanistan for women and girls who have been victims of violence. “It will make it impossible to prosecute cases of violence against women.”
Last December, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released their annual report on violence against women in Afghanistan, finding that there was a 28 percent increase in reports of violence against women from 2012 to 2013 , but only 17 percent of those were prosecuted under the country’s Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) – a small 2 percent increase from 2012.
At the launch of the UNAMA-OHCHR report, Georgette Gagnon, Director of the Human Rights Unit at UNAMA and OHCHR representative, told reporters, “Police, prosecutors and courts, in our view, need increased resources and technical and political support and direction from the highest levels of Government to deal adequately with the increase in reporting and registration of cases of violence against women documented in this report.”
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has urged the Vatican act to address child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy members and take measures to prevent it from happening in the future.
The CRC recommended that the Holy See remove all clergy who are confirmed or suspected child abusers from their positions immediately, to turn them in to authorities, and to provide the UN with an archive of evidence about the abuse – which they have so far declined to do. The CRC also urged the Vatican invite outside experts and victims to participate in an investigation of child abuse, the abuse of women in Magdalene laundries, and the way these situations were handled by church authorities. The Vatican must should also pay full compensation to victims and families, among several other recommendations.
“The Committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators,” the Committee said.
In the US alone between 1950 and 2010, 6,100 priests were accused of abuse, leading to an estimated 100,000 victims, according to Barbara Blaine, President of SNAP. Globally, thousands more have been accused, and they were frequently protected from any punishment by being transferred to a different parish where they could start abusing others, as shown in recently released documents of the Chicago archdiocese.
The CRC report follows a hearing the Committee held last month for Vatican leaders to address global child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and their role in protecting perpetrators. Although these recommendations are a step forward, they are currently non-binding.
Candidates for Afghanistan’s upcoming April election kicked off their presidential campaigns on Sunday.
According to TOLO News, many of the 11 candidates have focused on similar, broad issues so far, including security, human rights, women’s participation in government, corruption, and economic development. Activists and members of Afghanistan’s parliament pointed out the lack of specific goals in the platforms, but they hope candidates will reveal more detailed plans as they campaign for the next two months.
The April 5 election is the first independent election organized by Afghanistan. “This is a very important election, very crucial election because this is the first time from an elected president we are going to go to another elected president,” Ziaulhaq Amarkhil, chief electoral officer for the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC), told The Associated Press. “We are fully ready – logistically, operationally as well as from the capacity side, the budget side, the timing side.”
The IEC has been overseeing election activities to ensure they are conducted in compliance with the laws and with voter confidentiality protected. It has also been working to advance Afghan women’s participation in the electoral process through the establishment of a Gender Unit in 2009, targeted public education directed at women voters, the use of female polling staff and observers, and the development of appropriate security measures.
The French National Assembly Tuesday passed an abortion provision modifying a 1975 law which requires women to prove they are “in distress” to legally terminate a pregnancy. The accepted measure removes that language, and some lawmakers called it “archaic.” It also punishes people who attempt to prevent women from entering facilities where information on abortion is accessible. The bill must be put to a vote before it passes into law.
In France, abortion is legal for up to 12 weeks, after which a woman’s request must be signed off by two doctors and is only permissible if having the baby will risk her health or life, or that the baby will suffer from severe illness. Even so, France reports that as many as 220,000 women undergo the procedure each year and that 1 in 3 French women will receive an abortion in her lifetime. “Abortion is a right in itself,” said France’s women’s rights minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, “and not something that is allowed to conditions.” The state began to reimburse abortion costs last year.
The law is part of a larger gender equality bill, the most comprehensive in France’s history, which also extends paternity leave to six months, increases fines on businesses and political parties for failure to reach parity, prevents media broadcasts of demeaning or sexist imagery toward women, and bans beauty pageants for girls under 13.
The New York Times called the decision “a refreshing step forward for reproductive rights,” as well as “a welcome example of what governments can do to support equal rights and equal opportunities for women.” The National Assembly’s vote puts France in stark contrast with Spain, which is considering extremely conservative legislation that bans abortion except for cases of rape or a threat to a person’s physical or psychological health.
“This might seem merely symbolic,” said Vallaud-Belkacem, “but it’s a strong message. Women must have the right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy without having to justify themselves.”
President Obama has nominated Dr. Deborah Birx to become the next leader of PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which funds HIV/AIDS programs and prevention efforts around the world. Once confirmed, Dr. Birx will be the first woman to serve as the Coordinator of United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally.
“The Feminist Majority Foundation applauds the nomination of Deborah Birx to be the next Global AIDS Coordinator,” said Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal. “Dr. Birx is the right woman at the right time. As a highly qualified medical doctor who has dedicated her career to HIV/AIDS research and treatment, Dr. Birx is well-positioned to lead the important work of saving lives through the PEPFAR program.”
Since 2005, Dr. Birx has served as the Director of the Division of Global HIV/AIDS in the Center for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she was responsible for all of the agency’s global HIV/AIDS activities. Prior to that role, Dr. Birx served as Director of the US Military HIV Research Program and as Director of Retrovirology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. She has extensive experience in HIV/AIDS vaccine research and development and has earned various honors and awards for her work.
Dr. Birx will take the helm of PEPFAR at a critical time. Although PEPFAR has had success in fighting HIV/AIDS worldwide by supporting HIV testing and counseling and antiretroviral treatment for millions of people, the problem remains staggering. Over half of all people living with HIV are women, and it is the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age worldwide.
The Women’s League of Burma (WLB) released a report on Tuesday revealing the Burmese Army’s continued, systematic rape of girls and women since the country’s 2010 elections. The Thailand-based group documented over 100 rapes in its report, Same Impunity, Same Patterns, but believes these are only a small fraction of the rapes and that there have likely been hundreds more that have not been reported.
Overall, 47 of the reported cases were gang rapes, and 28 victims died from internal injuries after the rapes. Some of the victims were as young as eight years old. Most of the cases have been clearly linked to military offensives against ethnic minority Kachin and Shan insurgents in the northeast of Burma, also known as Myanmar. And many of the perpetrators have been high-ranking officials in the Burmese military.
“These crimes are more than random, isolated acts by rogue soldiers,” WLB writes. “Their widespread and systematic nature indicates a structural pattern: rape is still used as an instrument of war and oppression . . . Sexual violence is used as a tool by the Burmese military to demoralize and destroy ethnic communities.”
WLB argues that these actions go against international treaties Burma has signed as well as it’s own penal code that punishes rapists. To create change, WLB suggests putting the military under civilian judicial control so it can be held accountable for its crimes. It is currently independently in charge of administering its affairs. The group also suggests involving more women in the nation’s peace process, signing the international Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict[PDF], and adopting laws aimed at protecting women from violence.
Like many progressives, I am immediately skeptical of any law attempting to limit speech in public spaces, even when that speech is abhorrent. The First Amendment was created to protect unpopular speech- carving out speech we find offensive could have the effect of chilling important contrarian ideas around the country, the kind of conversations that contribute to a vibrant democracy.
But, at its core, this case is not about free speech. It is about protecting women and reproductive health clinic doctors and staff from anti-abortion extremists who are willing to resort to violence and murder to get their point across. I welcome laws that will make access to reproductive health care safer for women. Massachusetts adopted buffer zone laws after an anti-abortion extremist shot and killed two women and injured five others at two women’s health care clinics in the state.
And the buffer zone is working. Martha Walz, president of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, noted that since buffer zones were enacted, and later strengthened to a 35-foot bubble, “The tension levels are down; the law is working for everyone.”
The Justices often take cases where access to fundamental rights may conflict. Luckily, the Supreme Court has already weighed the significant interests at stake in considering the constitutionality of buffer zone laws. In Hill v. Colorado, a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court upheld a Colorado buffer zone law. Basically, Colorado’s law established that you can’t come within 8 feet of an unwilling person within a pre-established 100-foot bubble immediately outside of health care facilities.
When Massachusetts’ state legislators began writing the buffer zone law, Massachusetts had “experienced repeated incidents of violence outside of Reproductive Health Care Facilities (RHCF’s)”, forcing Massachusetts courts to issue numerous injunctions prohibiting individuals from “engaging in intimidating activity at RHCF’s”. The legislature created a 35-foot buffer zone as a response to a very real public safety problem surrounding health care facilities in the state. Two women had been shot and killed and five others injured as a result of anti-abortion extremists outside of RHCF’s and many more were harassed and intimidated by “overly aggressive demonstrators” daily. Women who were trying to obtain reproductive health services, including abortions, were being intimidated and violently harassed while trying to exercise their fundamental rights.
Reproductive Health Care Facilities have proven to be battle grounds where anti-abortion extremists resort to extreme measures to take the right to choose an abortion out of a woman’s hands. Creating a 35-foot buffer zone is a common sense response to a very real threat.
Women should not also have to undertake “Herculean efforts to escape the cacophony of political protests.” The yelling and signage displayed by anti-abortion activists at clinic doors are just visible representations of the culture of shame that’s associated with women exercising bodily autonomy. Anti-abortion extremists use this shame on many fronts; the vitriol they spew extends far beyond clinic entrances.
Since Roe v. Wade, there has been an all-out attack on abortion rights in state legislatures across the country. 26 states states have imposed at least a 24-hour waiting period in between the time she receives counseling and the abortion is preformed, 41 states have prohibited abortion after a specified point in a woman’s pregnancy, and 39 states require an abortion be preformed by a licensed physician (even though similarly safe surgeries don’t require this).
These restrictions are just some of the ways anti-abortion activists have been able to chip away at a woman’s fundamental right to control her reproduction. Their insistence that they be allowed to shout and pray within a close proximity to women in order to save them from themselves is just another way they continue to disrespect women. Their violent history and extreme tactics should only strengthen claims that a buffer zone around reproductive health care facilities is necessary to protect a woman’s fundamental right to choose.
Anti-abortion extremists claim that the buffer zone is an unfair infringement on their right free speech because it “eradicates the opportunity to communicate from ‘normal conversational distance,'” but it is not clear that engaging in this kind of conversation 35 feet away from the clinic entrance as opposed to at the clinic entrance has any “chilling” effect on the breadth of discourse. What is clear, however, is that anti-abortion activists have a displayed history of violence that ushered the genesis of this buffer zone. It’s worrisome, then, that the notoriously conservative Supreme Court has chosen to take this case given that they’ve already ruled on one similar.
The first female law firm in Saudi Arabia launched last week, founded by the first Saudi female lawyer Bayan Mahmoud Al-Zahran. Saudi Arabia issued law licenses to Al-Zahran and three other female lawyers in October 2013, the first time the country issued such licenses to female law graduates.
The launch of Al-Zahran’s law firm is a step forward for women in Saudi Arabia, where adult women are still required to have male guardians who make decisions on their behalf, such as the right to travel, study, work, or marry. Saudi women are required to cover themselves in public, and they are banned from driving, forced to rely on male relatives or guardians to travel anywhere.
The owners and 11 employees of a Bangladeshi garment factory are facing charges for culpable homicide after the death of 112 workers in a fire last year.
Those charged – including owners Delwar Hossain and Mahmuda Akter, and 11 factory managers, security guards, and engineers – created dangerous conditions for the workers that contributed to their deaths. The building had no emergency fire exits, and it’s fire certificate had expired. The factory was nine stories high, even though it only had permission to be three stories, and it was located in a narrow alley where firefighters could not reach the flames.
On the day of the fire, managers and security guards locked the doors, trapping the workers inside.” The managers and security guards misguided the workers by saying that it was nothing but a part of a regular fire drill when the blaze broke out,” said Public Prosecutor Anwarul Kabir Babul. “So the workers went back to work after the fire alarm went off, but they got trapped as the managers locked the gates.”
This is the first time Bangladeshi authorities have charged factory owners in a country where several factory disasters over the past two years have injured and killed hundreds of workers. A court will decide on December 31 whether to accept the charges and allow the trial to proceed. If those charged are convicted, they could face life in prison.
As president, Bachelet will address the profound gap between the rich and poor in Chile. The country has the highest level of income inequality among the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Bachelet also intends to establish free university education, a priority for Chilean youth who have organized massive protests against the prohibitively high cost of education there.
“Feminists worldwide applaud Michelle Bachelet’s victory and great leadership for women’s rights,” said Feminist Majority Foundation president Eleanor Smeal in reaction to the win.
Bachelet, a medical doctor by training, served as the president of Chile between 2006 and 2010. The first woman to lead the country, Bachelet reformed Chile’s pension system, developed new social welfare programs for children, and was known as a strong champion for women and girls. Constitutionally barred from seeking a consecutive second term, Bachelet went on to become the first Executive Director and Under-Secretary-General of UN Women.
India’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday to reinstate a ban on gay sex. Their decision overturned a 2009 Delhi High Court decision finding that Section 377 of the penal code, the 153-year-old colonial-era law criminalizing gay relationships, was discriminatory and violated human rights.
Violating the law can be punished with up to 10 years in jail. Although the BBC reports that the law is rarely used for prosecution, it is often used by police to harass gay people. “This decision is a body-blow to people’s rights to equality, privacy and dignity,” said G. Ananthapadmanabhan of Amnesty International India in a statement.
Although various conservative groups had petitioned the two-judge Supreme Court to reinstate the ban, the decision prompted protests in cities across India and dismay from Indian leaders.
“To say in this day and age that LGBT rights should not be recognized is extremely regressive and extremely disappointing,” said Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.
India’s parliament can vote to change or remove Section 377, or the government can file a curative petition to have the case reviewed quickly by a five-judge panel.
A recently released study by the Guttmacher Institute reveals that the proportion of US women who paid zero dollars out-of-pocket for birth control significantly increased after the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive coverage guarantee went into effect in August 2012. The proportion of women paying zero dollars for oral contraceptive pills increased from 15 to 40 percent, and the proportion of those paying zero for vaginal rings increased from 23 to 52 percent [PDF].
“Our analysis provides the first quantitative evidence that the cost-sharing protection under the ACA is indeed working as intended,” says Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute. “Large numbers of women who couldn’t previously do so are now obtaining birth control without co-pays or deductibles, which allows them to more easily attain contraception’s well-documented health, social and economic benefits.”
The researchers, however, found that there has not been a significant change for injectable or IUD users, even though the ACA guarantees that all new health insurance plans cover FDA-approved contraceptives without co-pays or deductibles. The findings suggest that some private insurers may not be applying the ACA’s mandate to the full range of contraceptive methods available. “Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence from media reports and from health insurance companies’ own publicly available documents suggest that some plans are improperly requiring cost-sharing in circumstances where they shouldn’t,” said Adam Sonfield, senior public policy associate at Guttmacher and study co-author. “This is unacceptable, and state and federal policy makers should step up enforcement as needed.”
The US Supreme Court will also soon determine how many women will benefit from the ACA birth control benefit. In November, the Court agreed to hear a challenge to the ACA contraceptive coverage provision. The Court will decide whether for-profit companies can assert religious objections in order to opt-out of the provision’s requirements and deny this coverage to their female employees.
The Feminist Majority Foundation launched a petition to send the Supreme Court a clear message that companies should not be able to use religion as cover to discriminate against women. Sign our petition, leave stories,and tell the Court why birth control coverage matters to you! You can also share the petition online using the tag #MyBodyMyBC!
Yesterday marked International Human Rights Day, a day to celebrate human rights advances and to assess the challenges that lie ahead in protecting them.
“The fundamentals for protecting and promoting human rights are largely in place: these include a strong and growing body of international human rights law and standards, as well as institutions to interpret the laws, monitor compliance and apply them to new and emerging human rights issues,” said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in a statement. “The key now is to implement those laws and standards to make enjoyment of human rights a reality on the ground.”
One of the most pressing global human rights concerns that the United States can easily help improve is women’s access to family planning services and protection from HIV/AIDS. Every minute, a young woman becomes infected with HIV/AIDS. Women need reproductive health programs to be integrated with HIV/AIDS services, and vice-versa, for improved efficiency and effectiveness in preventing AIDS infection and unplanned pregnancy and improving maternal and child health.
The United States, through PEPFAR – the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) – has made an unprecedented commitment to helping create an AIDS Free Generation. Yet, PEPFAR funds cannot be used to purchase family planning commodities, nor are family planning services provided at PEPFAR sites, meaning that women cannot access a full range of contraceptives at the same site where they receive HIV/AIDS testing, counseling, or treatment. Moreover, continued U.S.-funding preferences for abstinence-based programs undermine comprehensive HIV-prevention services, including the provision of condoms.
TAKE ACTION: Urge decision makers to integrate comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare services with HIV/AIDS treatment for women globally.
LEARN MORE: Read our week-long blog series about human rights.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released their annual report on violence against women in Afghanistan yesterday, revealing mixed results of the country’s Elimination of Violence against Women Law.
“A Way to Go: An Update on Implementation of the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan [PDF],” found that there was a 28 percent increase in reports of violence against women from 2012 to 2013 , but only 17 percent of those were prosecuted under EVAW – a small 2 percent increase from last year.
The law, which was issued by the executive decree of President Hamid Karzai in 2009, criminalizes 22 acts of violence against women and specifies punishment for perpetrators. It has still not been passed by Parliament, after women’s rights activist and head of the women’s committee of the Lower House, Fawzia Kofi, introduced it for a vote in 2013. Kofi was concerned that, without approval for EVAW by Parliament, the decree might be reversed by a newly elected President in 2014.
While it has “provided protection to Afghan women facing violence,” said Georgette Gagnon, the UNAMA Director of Human Rights and Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, it has not helped as many as it could due to “a lack of investigation” and “continued under reporting. “The report’s authors wrote that an increase in the number of female police officers and leaders, establishing a system to track incidents of violence, and increasing funding and training for EVAW commissions would make the law stronger. “We have found that police, prosecutors and courts, in our view, need increased resources and technical and political support and direction from the highest levels of Government to deal adequately with the increase in reporting and registration of cases of violence against women documented in this report,” Gagnon said.
Media Resources: Feminist Newswire 5/20/13, 9/11/13, 10/10/13; United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 12/8/13; Al Jazeera 12/8/13
Research completed by the Guttmacher Institute and released this week exposes the considerable financial toll taken on Ugandan women and their families when they pursue unsafe abortions. “Documenting the Individual and Household-Level Cost of Unsafe Abortion in Uganda” [PDF], by Aparna Sundaram of the Guttmacher Institute et al, uses data collected between 2011 and 2012 from more than 1,300 women to gain insight into how the costs of both unsafe abortion and post-abortion care impact women’s finances and the well-being of their families.
Uganda’s abortion rate is one of the highest in the world. In 2003, 54 of every 1,000 women in Uganda had had an induced abortion between the ages of 15 and 49. Confusing and restrictive laws lead many women to pursue dangerous and unsafe abortions, and in 2003 85,000 women in Uganda were treated for complications from their abortions in local hospitals. On average, Ugandan women in the study paid 59,600 shillings for their abortions (equivalent to $23), but post-abortion care increased that average cost to 128,000 shillings on average (or $49). These costs are significant for women in Uganda, where per capita income in 2011 was $510 and 38% of the population lived on $1.25 per day in 2009. 73% of the women in the study reported that they had lost wages due to treatment, 60% reported that their children had less to eat and/or were unable to attend school after their treatment, and 34% reported that they experienced a decline in economic stability after their care was complete.
“These findings make clear that more must be done to reduce unintended pregnancy by ensuring Ugandan women have access to family planning services,” said Moses Mulumba, executive director of the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development. “Accurate information on contraception and high-quality services must be made available as a matter of constitutionally guaranteed rights to allow women to avoid an unwanted pregnancy. Young and poor women in particular need access to these services.”
The Guttmacher report recommends increased family planning services and contraceptive access in Uganda. 34% of married women and 35% of sexual active unmarried women in Uganda experience an unmet need for contraception. A recent Ms. magazine report on PEPFAR funding in the region found that abstinence-only policies in the country lead to frequent condom stockouts. The Uganda Ministry of Health has stated that condom availability over the past five years doesn’t meet the needs or demands of the population. A lack of available family planning resources is directly responsible for both the high rate of unsafe abortions in Uganda as well as rising HIV/AIDS infections.
US President Barack Obama announced the launch of The HIV Cure Initiative yesterday, a $100 million investment in National Institutes of Health (NIH) research into a cure to HIV/AIDS.
“The United States should be at the forefront of the discoveries into how to put HIV in long-term remission without requiring lifelong therapies,” President Obama said at a White House event commemorating World AIDS Day. “Or, better yet, eliminate it completely.”
Other high-priority AIDS research will continue to be supported alongside research for a cure, including treatment during pregnancy, and the effect of the interaction of factors like sex, race, and stigma on treatment. The US will also give five billion dollars to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over the next two years.
The US has been a world leader in funding prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, accounting for 64 percent of total international assistance to low- and middle- income countries. The President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) currently provides life-saving treatment for 6.7 million people. However, PEPFAR and other prevention programs have been held back by the influence of abstinence-based programs, frequent condom shortages in countries with high rates of those living with HIV/AIDS, and the lack of integration of family planning and HIV/AIDS services.
TAKE ACTION: Tell US leaders that HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs must be integrated with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services including family planning services for women and girls.
A pregnant Italian woman who was visiting England for a work training course had her baby forcibly removed and taken into the custody of social services.
While in a psychiatric facility in Essex, a court declared her incompetent, so doctors sedated her and performed a caesarean section on her against her will. When she woke up, doctors told her they had removed her child and taken it into custody. Prior to the operation, the woman reportedly suffered a panic attack when she could not find her daughters’ passports, and she called the police. They took her to the psychiatric facility, where she was held under Britain’s Mental Health Act for five weeks.
Essex social services refuses to return the now 15-month-old girl to her mother and plans to put her up for adoption. The mother is currently fighting to have the court’s ruling overturned before the adoption process is completed. A judge formed a favorable opinion of her, but he ruled to put the child up for adoption anyway because of the risk that the woman may suffer a relapse.
This case has been called “unprecedented” by the woman’s attorneys. “I worry about the way these decisions about a person’s mental capacity are being taken without any apparent concern as to the effect on the individual being affected,” said Member of Parliament John Hemming, according to The Telegraph.
