What we do
Promoting women’s reproductive health and rights
Respecting women’s sexual and reproductive rights and physical integrity is a condition for
empowering women in the context of sustainable development
Women can never become full economic agents if they can’t choose the number and the spacing
of the children they want. Recognition of women’s right to have control over their fecundity, is
felt essential to guarantee their autonomy and their dignity as CEDAW recommends: in other
words the right to control their bodies. Sustainable development cannot be attained because
women, who make up half of humanity are victims of discriminations. Article 16 of CEDAW,
demands that state parties should take all measures to ensure that women should “decide freely
and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and have access to information,
education and means to enable them to exercise these rights”, A principle which was reaffirmed
at the International Conference on Population and Development- Cairo, Egypt (1994) and at the
Beijing 4th World Conference on Women (1995).
More generally, the Beijing platform, after
having underlined that “women having control over their bodies is an important basis for
enjoying other rights”, suggests, among other measures, “to reinforce laws in order to eliminate
discrimination against women, to ensure full respect of the integrity of the individual, and realize
the conditions necessary for a woman to exercise her rights in procreation and eliminate coercive
laws and practices. Time is now to make an effort to follow up and ensure that these measures
are taken by government. WIRI plans to start drafting shadow reports to be submitted to the
CEDAW committee. In these reports, WIRI will be describing the situation concerning women’s
empowerment, as it is in reality; that is to say if women have the possibility to have control over
their body. WIRI will work to disseminate the observations that CEDAW committee will
always make, on the government reports of women’s rights of control over their body.
WIRI will engage the state in reforms evolving towards the elaboration and application of
politics and programs relating to sexual and reproductive health, as the right to international
human rights requires. In this context, WIRI always work on campaigns calling on the state to:
Work out comprehensive family planning politics and programs offering a large
scale of goods, information and services relating to Make them available,
accessible, and of good quality.
g) Decriminalize the supply and use of all forms of contraception and voluntary
sterilization to control fecundity and remove obligations of parental or spousal
consent.
h) Take measures to ensure availability, access and quality to a complete set of
contraceptive, pharmaceutical and surgical methods
i) Decriminalize Communication on sexual and reproductive health information.
Proof of education of this type of health included.
j) Formulate policies aiming at ensuring that laws like the one on pornography
should not to be used to limit access to information and to education on sexual
and reproductive health, or to punish those who provide access to it
k) Decriminalize abortion and the laws referring to it, especially those inclining to its
use.
l) To invite government to adopt all measures necessary to promote women’s
reproductive health and rights and especially to repeal the laws on abortion and
to ban genital mutilation, so as to enable women to enjoy fully their sexual and
reproductive rights, without delay or reservations.