Citation

Williams CR, Meier BM. Sex. Reprod. Health Matters 2019; 27(1): e1691899.

Affiliation

Associate Professor of Global Health Policy, Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/26410397.2019.1691899

PMID

31809245

Abstract

In September 2019, Dubravka Šimonovic, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women (VAW), submitted her report to the UN General Assembly on “mistreatment and VAW during reproductive health services with a focus on childbirth and obstetric violence”. This report solidified obstetric violence as a form of VAW – a human rights violation to be addressed by the UN, rather than solely a matter of quality of care for maternal health professionals. The positioning opens new channels for interdisciplinary advocacy to be translated into multisectoral policy. However, the risk is that rights-based approaches remain siloed within the human rights community, rather than serving as a foundation for broad-based policy reforms.

Effectively addressing obstetric violence will require collaborative multisectoral efforts, at the nexus of global health and human rights, to respect, protect, and fulfil the intersecting rights violated when health providers disrespect, abuse, or mistreat women seeking sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care. The sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) community has a crucial role in ensuring that efforts to eliminate obstetric violence are grounded in a rich contextual understanding of the underlying factors that contribute to mistreatment. This opens the opportunity to work with a broad set of health and human rights actors, so that appropriate norms and metrics are developed and implemented for accountability.

Building from the report of the Special Rapporteur, this commentary outlines the interdisciplinary scholarship and advocacy around obstetric violence, examines mistreatment in SRH services as an intersectional human rights violation, and provides policy recommendations for strengthening multisectoral efforts to ensure respectful maternity care for all ...

Language: en