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Abstract
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International Women's Day, on March 8, is a chance to look ahead to some crucial events later this year on the ongoing agenda to create an equitable world for women and girls. On March 9, the 64th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women was set to adopt a political declaration reaffirming commitments made in the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. That landmark document, the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
The Platform for Action set out comprehensive strategic objectives around 12 areas of concern, including health, and was groundbreaking in its recognition that “[w]omen's health involves their emotional, social and physical well-being and is determined by the social, political and economic context of their lives, as well as by biology”. In an Article in this month's issue, Emma Slaymaker and colleagues explore the changing landscape of women's sexual and reproductive health within a social context using data from nationally representative surveys. They find that, in just over half of the 64 countries studied, the proportion of sexually active women of reproductive age who do not currently want to become pregnant and who are not using a contraceptive decreased between 1995 and 2018. Ecological analysis suggested that these findings were correlated with increases in gender equality and women's time in education, but also with social issues such as higher ages at first sexual intercourse and higher prevalence of multiple partnerships among women. However, the findings varied widely by country and the authors point to the need for contextualised, country-specific policy responses when addressing targets such as Sustainable Development Goal 3.7.
The UN Commission's draft political declaration expresses concern that no country has yet fully achieved equality and empowerment for women and girls, that progress in some areas has stalled or even reversed, and that “women and girls who experience multiple forms of discrimination have made the least progress”. Indeed, the world continues to witness shocking cases of denial of the rights of women. In February this year, media accounts picked up on a report from South Africa's Commission for Gender Equality of an investigation into the coerced sterilisation of 48 pregnant black women, most of whom were living with HIV. The women were reportedly sterilised during the course of a caesarean section. Their consent forms had been signed under conditions that did not allow for considered understanding (eg, extreme labour pain) or that were threatening (eg, denial of care if refused). Additionally, some of the women reported discriminatory remarks from health-care staff about their HIV status ...
Language: en |