There is no greater indication of a country’s strength and stability than the status of its women and girls. Despite this fact, many current health policies tend to sideline sexual and reproductive health and rights—the cornerstone of women’s and girls’ wellbeing. 

IWHC colleagues the Lilac Loonies (Loucas de Pedra Lilas), a Brazilian activist theater group, stand up to fundamentalisms at the Social Forum of the Americas in July 2004.

• women and girls cannot control the circumstances under which they have sex, and if, when, and how often they become pregnant;
• women and girls cannot live healthy lives free from violence, coercion, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and discrimination;
• women and girls they lack access to the basic information and services they need to achieve sexual and reproductive health.

Many countries are staggering under massive debt, widespread poverty, weak health systems, and the devastating impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Progressive international agreements forged in the 1990s and into this decade recognized the connection between confronting these challenges and investing in the health of women and adolescents, eliminating systemic discrimination against them, and ensuring their social, political, and economic autonomy. The agreements of the 1990s are grounded firmly in principles of social justice and human rights, and they set the goal—among others—of securing sexual and reproductive health and rights for all by the year 2015.

Realizing this broad and ambitious goal requires substantial engagement by the health sector, but global and national health policies tend to focus narrowly on the control of communicable diseases. They undervalue the non-disease elements of sexual and reproductive health—contraception, abortion, pregnancy, delivery, pre-natal and post-partum care, and violence against women. Often focused on distributing drugs and developing new technologies, these policies tend to ignore the extensive investments in social and behavioral change needed to protect the human rights of women and adolescents, and thus secure good health for all members of society.

As we confront these challenges, along with the challenges posed by fundamentalist opposition worldwide, IWHC is drawing on our demonstrated ability to convince policy makers of the centrality of women’s health and rights to wider strategies for sustainable development, poverty reduction, and now, the fight to stem the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Links of Interest

UK Partnership for Global Health
For an excellent compilation of articles and resources exploring the connections between globalization and women's health and rights, visit the Women's Development section of the UK Partnership for Global Health's website here.