Reproduction health

1. Sexual Reproductive Health
and Family Planning
Lecture 6
Dr Enock Ngome
Reproductive Health and
Reproductive Rights (SRHR)

2. Learning Objectives for this Lecture
By the end of this module, the student
should have knowledge of the following:
◼ SRH as a Human Right
◼ The Human Rights Based Approach
◼ Sexual and Reproductive Rights

3. What is SRHR
◼ SRHR is the concept of human rights applied
to sexuality and reproduction.
◼ SRHR is a combination of four fields that in
some contexts are more or less distinct from
each other, but less so or not at all in other
contexts.

4. What is SRHR
◼ The four filed of SRHR are:
– Sexual health,
– Sexual rights,
– Reproductive health and
– Reproductive rights.
◼ The four fields of SRHR are treated as
separate but inherently intertwined within
the context of SRHR

5. Sexual health
◼ WHO defines Sexual Health as:
– “A state of physical, mental and social
well-being in relation to sexuality. It
requires a positive and respectful
approach to sexuality and sexual
relationships, as well as the possibility
of having pleasurable and safe sexual
experiences, free of coercion,
discrimination and violence."

6. Sexual Rights
◼ Sexual Rights is defined a little differently
from the other three aspects of SRHR.
◼ The struggle for sexual rights include, and
focus on, sexual pleasure and
emotional sexual expression.
◼ The World Association for Sexual
Health (WAS) is one platform for the
Sexual Rights and was founded in 1978
by a multidisciplinary, world-wide group of
NGOs to promote the field of sexology.

7. Declaration of Sexual Rights
◼ In 1999, WAS adopted the Declaration of 11
Sexual Rights which were heavily revised and
expanded in March 2014 by the WAS Advisory
Council to include 16 sexual rights.
◼ Sixteen (16) Sexual Rights are as follows:
– The right to equality and non-discrimination
– The right to life, liberty and security of the
person
– The right to autonomy and bodily integrity
– The right to be free from torture and cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

8. Declaration of Sexual Rights (2)
– The right to be free from all forms of violence
and coercion
– The right to privacy
– The right to the highest attainable standard of
health, including sexual health; with the
possibility of pleasurable, satisfying, and safe
sexual experiences
– The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific
progress and its application
– The right to information
– The right to education and the right to
comprehensive sexuality education

9. Declaration of Sexual Rights (2)
– The right to enter, form, and dissolve marriage
and similar types of relationships based on
equality and full and free consent
– The right to decide whether to have children, the
number and spacing of children, and to have the
information and the means to do so
– The right to the freedom of thought, opinion, and
expression
– The right to freedom of association and peaceful
assembly
– The right to participation in public and political life
– The right to access to justice, remedies, and
redress

10. Reproductive Health
◼ Revisiting the definition of Health:
– A state of complete physical, mental and
social well-being, and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity
◼ Thus Reproductive Health addresses the
reproductive processes, functions and system at all
stages of life. Reproductive health, therefore,
implies that people are able to have a
responsible, satisfying and safer sex life and
that they have the capability to reproduce and
the freedom to decide if, when and how
often to do so.

11. Reproductive Health
◼ Implications of Reproductive Health: It
means that men and women:
– Men and women ought to be informed of and to
have access to safe, effective, affordable and
acceptable methods of birth control;
– Men and women need to have access to
appropriate health care services of sexual,
reproductive medicine
– Implementation of health education programs
should stress the importance of women to go
safely through pregnancy and childbirth so that
couples get the best chance of having a healthy
infant.

12. Reproductive Rights
◼ Reproductive rights are legal rights and
freedoms relating to reproduction and
reproductive health.
◼ WHO defines reproductive rights as follows:
– Reproductive 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. They also include the right
of all to make decisions concerning reproduction
free of discrimination, coercion and violence.

13. Why Rights on SRHR (1)
◼ We have discussed problems with regard to
maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.
◼ Maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity are
preventable yet we still see very high level of
maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity
especially in developing countries
◼ Because of this SRHR has been seen to be an
effective effort to eliminate these problems

14. Why Rights on SRHR (2)
◼ SRHR encompass efforts to:
– Eliminate preventable maternal and neonatal
mortality and morbidity,
– Ensure quality sexual and reproductive
health services, including contraceptive
services, and
– Address sexually transmitted infections
(STI) and cervical cancer, violence against
women and girls, and sexual and
reproductive health needs of adolescents.
◼ It is thus essential that there be universal access to
SRH

15. Why Rights on SRHR (3)
◼ SRH therefore is related to multiple human
rights, including:
– The right to life,
– The right to be free from torture,
– The right to health,
– The right to privacy,
– The right to education, and
– The prohibition of discrimination.
◼ This means that all States have obligations
to respect, protect and fulfil rights
related to SRH.

16. What does this obligation by
States mean
◼ It means that every human especially
women are entitled to reproductive health
care services, goods and facilities that are:
– available in adequate numbers;
– accessible physically and economically;
– accessible without discrimination; and
– of good quality

17. What could be the main issue here?
Why obliged? (1)
◼ Violations of women’s SRHR are frequent. Violations
take many forms: For example:
– Denial of access to services that only women require,
or poor quality services,
– Subjecting women’s access to services to third party
authorization, and
– Performance of procedures related to women’s
reproductive and sexual health without the woman’s
consent, including forced sterilization, forced
virginity examinations, and forced abortion.
– Women’s SRHR are also at risk when they are
subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) and
early marriage.

18. What could be the main issue here?
Why obliged? (2)
◼ Other examples include:
– Violations deeply engrained in societal values
pertaining to women’s sexuality; i.e. Patriarchal
concepts of women’s roles within the family mean
that women are often valued based on their ability
to reproduce. Early marriage and pregnancy, or
repeated pregnancies spaced too closely together,
often as the result of efforts to produce male
offspring because of the preference for sons, has a
devastating impact on women’s health with
sometimes fatal consequences. Women are also
often blamed for infertility, suffering ostracism
and being subjected various human rights
violations as a result.

19. Human Rights Based Approach
◼ A human rights based approach is about
empowering people to know and claim
their rights and increasing the ability
and accountability of individuals and
institutions who are responsible for
respecting, protecting and fulfilling
rights.

20. Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA)
◼ Its important that people are given a greater
opportunity to participate in shaping the
decisions that impact on their human rights.
This will increase the ability of those with
responsibility for fulfilling rights to recognise
and know how to respect those rights, and
make sure they can be held to account.

21. The PANEL Principles for HRBA
◼ There are some underlying principles which
are of fundamental importance in applying a
human rights based approach in practice.
These are:
– Participation
– Accountability
– non-discrimination and equality
– empowerment (of rights holders) and
– legality.
◼ These are known as the PANEL principles.

22. The PANEL Principles for HRBA
◼ Please check the Human Rights Based
Approach Videos from the SCOTTISH
HUMAN RIGHT COMMISSION website:
https://www.scottishhumanrights.com
/projects-and-programmes/human-
rights-based-approach/ demonstrating
the need to make sure that people’s
rights are put at the very centre of
policies and practices.

23. ◼ Participation: https://youtu.be/Zum0NJfDLD0
◼ Accountability: https://youtu.be/NRx2m_baNkg
◼ Non-Discrimination and Equality:
https://youtu.be/bnI1QfmTyZ0
◼ Empowerment (of Rights Holders):
https://youtu.be/BJDpda0SOfo
◼ Legality: https://youtu.be/KGDAqOXf_oc
The PANEL Principles for HRBA

24. Thank you very
much for listening