The High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development takes aim at violence and maternal mortality.
It is critical that the barriers facing women in relation to accessing supportive peri-natal services are fully understood and addressed including structural drivers such as poverty, gender-based violence from partners, in-laws and neighbours, and property and inheritance rights loss. If we do not address these issues, we can not “save the babies.”
Last week the UN released its latest estimates on global maternal deaths, just two years after the last figure. From 1990 to 2010, they found, the number of women dying from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes worldwide dropped from 543,000 to 287,000, a near-fifty percent reduction in fatalities.
Late Friday at the 45th Session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD), member states issued a bold resolution in support of young people’s sexual and reproductive health and human rights.
It was a youth takeover at the United Nations last week, for the 45th annual Commission on Population and Development, a global meeting to examine whether and how we are protecting the sexual rights and health of our youngest generation.
Friday, April 27th, 2012 marked the fifth and final day of this year’s United Nations Commission on Population and Development (CPD), the time when the member states of the UN come together to discuss sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally.
The opposition wants all young people who deviate from the social “norm” (also referred to as ‘sexual anarchists’) to be prisoners of their own natural identity without the ability to express themselves and their individuality in a safe environment.
What the opposition’s arguments lack is one or a combination of the following: an evidence-base, a rational argument, an understanding of biomedical theories including pathology and pharmacology, an appreciation of normal emotional reactions and the social determinants of the individual identity, amongst others.
As the negotiations at the 45th Commission on Population and Development (CPD) continue at the United Nations in New York City, the work towards establishing a strong outcome document that ensures young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) becomes even more intense.
At this extremely important time for the globe, we need to ensure that the outcome documents of this year’s, and forthcoming meetings of the Commission on Population and Development are strong and will guarantee an increased focus on young people and their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
