International Women's Health Coalition - Standing Up for Our Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Standing Up for Our Sexual and Reproductive Rights

A Guide to the 2012 Commission on Population and Development Youth Resolution

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Nearly one third of the world’s population right now is under the age of 24. Crucial decisions about our futures and the future of our planet are happening right now, and we must be a part of that process. It is vital that our human rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled. We demand access to education, health, employment, and equality. We call for recognition of our sexual and reproductive rights, and need all the information, skills and services to make free, responsible, and informed decisions. We welcome and applaud world governments that agreed, at the 2012 United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD), to uphold these rights. This document, known as the Youth Resolution, is an historic agreement that we can use at the national, regional, and international levels to hold our governments accountable and ensure the sexual and reproductive rights and health of young people, especially women and girls.

How to Use This Tool
The Youth Resolution itself is a dense document, so we boiled down its essence to a list of twelve demands that we can use to attain a more just future for ourselves and our peers.

The Tool exists in three formats and can be used in three different ways:

Online: We made a slideshow of the ten demands that you can embed on your website and link to in social media, so we can all encourage young people to learn about their rights.
In presentations and trainings: Need a way to start off your training about youth rights and advocacy? We made a powerpoint of the ten demands so you can easily use it in your trainings as an overview of the Youth Resolution.
As a handout: If you want to print out the tool as a handout in trainings, or to give away at other events you’re organizing, we made a simple PDF so you can do that.

In the tool, there are citations that look like this: “OP4” - that means the full information is found in operative paragraph number four.

The Tool is available in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. If there are other languages you’d like to see it in and you can get someone to translate the text, get in touch with communications@iwhc.org and we’ll work together!

Where to Find the Full Resolution
The Tool is our interpretation of the CPD Youth Resolution – there’s a lot more to it than just these ten points, and there is a lot more language in it that you can use in your advocacy. The full text of the Resolution is on the UN’s CPD website, under Agenda Item 8.

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