“In these times of resurgent threats to women’s rights and gender equality, we must redouble our efforts to protect women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Among the international and European legal instruments that protect these rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) guarantees women’s rights to decide freely and responsibly about the number and spacing of their children and to have access to information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights”, says Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner of Human Rights, in his latest Human rights Comment published today.
“Sexual and reproductive health and rights are fundamentally linked to the enjoyment of many other human rights, as recently stated by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As widely illustrated by the case-law and guidelines of human rights bodies, sexual and reproductive health is often the context in which human rights are violated, including the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, but also the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment and the right to private life. The right to be free from discrimination on grounds of sex or gender is also at stake, as this right is breached when reproductive health services that only women require are not provided.” (more...)