Paragraph 95 of the Beijing Platform for Action. Chapter IV. C. Women and Health
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/10/23
95. Bearing in mind the above definition, reproductive rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international human rights documents and other consensus documents. These rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. It also includes their right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents. In the exercise of this right, they should take into account the needs of their living and future children and their responsibilities towards the community. The promotion of the responsible exercise of these rights for all people should be the fundamental basis for government- and community-supported policies and programmes in the area of reproductive health, including family planning. As part of their commitment, full attention should be given to the promotion of mutually respectful and equitable gender relations and particularly to meeting the educational and service needs of adolescents to enable them to deal in a positive and responsible way with their sexuality. Reproductive health eludes many of the world’s people because of such factors as: inadequate levels of knowledge about human sexuality and inappropriate or poor-quality reproductive health information and services; the prevalence of high-risk sexual behaviour; discriminatory social practices; negative attitudes towards women and girls; and the limited power many women and girls have over their sexual and reproductive lives. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable because of their lack of information and access to relevant services in most countries. Older women and men have distinct reproductive and sexual health issues which are often inadequately addressed.
Beijing Declaration (1995)
Paragraph 95 is interesting with the continued “bearing in mind” of reproductive health and rights. It becomes an important part of the right of a woman to make informed and independent choices about her own body with fear of violent reprisal or governmental-religious restriction or sanction on the independent choice.
As stated, the reproductive rights connect or link, intimately, with the human rights already recognized by national laws in accordance with international human rights documents. These amount to universal, in the sense of broad consensus, rights and stipulations documents to guide the direction of international discourse.
The odds of pushback against these rights will come from national ethnic fundamentalisms, state fundamentalisms, patriarchal oriented groups, and religious fundamentalisms. These produce problems for the ability of the people to simply live their lives freely, in spite of the public and political rhetoric about freedoms.
The reality, many times, can be quite different from this. The family planning has been pushed back against by several movements and organizations around the world. We can continue to see the impacts of this since the earliest days of the UN to try and make family planning a fundamental human right.
The poor educational systems, regarding sexual education curricula, set children, and in particular girls, inadequately and even improperly – misinformation, disinformation – educated on the important roles of consent and contraception in the prevention of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, and the other technologies available to them.
The basic premise is consent as a reinforcement of the fundamental notion of autonomy, of choice, of freedom, of the ability to say, “Yes,” or, “No,” in a sexual, potential, encounter. It is interesting to see a strong male negative reaction to it.
Yet, a positive reaction from more women. What does this seem to imply to you? In essence, it represents the dichotomy with women gaining equality and then men who had power-over losing veto status, in a way, which creates a sense of negativity when another party gains the right of choice akin to one’s own. Equality to the previously unequal feels like a loss.
Then we have the issues with the older women. But these are long-held problems by societies with women bearing the majority brunt of them. They raise fundamental questions about the nature of consent, of autonomy, and who gets freedom and who does not in the international world.
Historically, the rich, the royal, and the male had these. Now, we are seeing a democratization – since December 10, 1948 – of rights for everyone in the world with a bumpy transition into modernity, a transition into a better world through universalization of ethics, which approximates the transcendent.
–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.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 