Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. C. Women and Health – Paragraph 92
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/21
92. Women’s right to the enjoyment of the highest standard of health must be secured throughout the whole life cycle in equality with men. Women are affected by many of the same health conditions as men, but women experience them differently. The prevalence among women of poverty and economic dependence, their experience of violence, negative attitudes towards women and girls, racial and other forms of discrimination, the limited power many women have over their sexual and reproductive lives and lack of influence in decision-making are social realities which have an adverse impact on their health. Lack of food and inequitable distribution of food for girls and women in the household, inadequate access to safe water, sanitation facilities and fuel supplies, particularly in rural and poor urban areas, and deficient housing conditions, all overburden women and their families and have a negative effect on their health. Good health is essential to leading a productive and fulfilling life, and the right of all women to control all aspects of their health, in particular their own fertility, is basic to their empowerment.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The best standard within the constraints of a woman’s locale becomes the basis for the standard of a quality and healthy life. Duly note, which I consider very important, the emphasis on “whole life cycle” rather than a particular sector or cross-section of a female’s life.
This emphasis is throughout the life cycle and, thus, focusing within the entire population of women while within the equality with the men. Women have more in common with men than not, including in the health areas.
However, the additional concerns of women can be simply ignored or not dealt with as seriously as the men. With women in penurious circumstances, they can live with a perpetual cloud of dependence in a variety of ways.
They can be and are subject to violence, negative social perspectives, in addition to overt racism and sexism. The reduction in the choices of women regarding reproduction amounts to this fundamental form of restriction on the lives and livelihoods of women.
Take the “social realities” handed to women in the variety of means by which their fundamental access to finances, food, and water are restricted to such as extent as to leave them at the mercy of the men and the community, it is a form of bondage.
This connects to the excess work burden of women in the world too. There exists a persistent and ongoing overburdening of women in work, in the home, and in other social responsibilities of the society.
This impacts health. Some differences are innate, grow as a snowflake forms over time. But others are socio-cultural and imposed from the outside, often through coercion or force on women. Some health-care coverage may want to focus on this.
The final focus is the most consequential with control over one’s body, which is reproductive bodily autonomy with abortion and other reprodutive health rights respected and implemented.
–One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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