Reproductive Health Matters publishes many papers on gender and rights-based issues related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. These papers analyze topics like gender-based violence, unsafe abortion, adolescent pregnancy, and gender inequalities in health policies and programs. They also discuss sexual and reproductive rights and how to implement rights-based approaches in health services. While gender and rights are important analytical tools, actually creating change on these issues is very slow. Future research needs to test more effective strategies to reduce gender inequality and better respect sexual and reproductive rights in order to move beyond analysis into real activism and ground-level change.

1. Articles in RHM on
gender and rights-based issues
in relation to
sexual and reproductive
health and rights
Marge Berer
Editor, Reproductive Health Matters
~~~~~~~~~~
Health Systems Research, Cape Town,
2 October 2014

2. Why RHM publishes so many papers on gender and
rights based approaches in sexual and reproductive
health and rights

3. Papers on gender issues in RHM

4. Gender and…
 Gender-based violence and sexual violence and how to
provide help and support through health services for
survivors
 Ethical and methodological issues in conducting research
on gender-based violence
 Sex selection, exacerbated by one-child and two-child
population policies in certain Asian countries
 Unsafe and legally restricted abortion as the refusal to
support women's autonomy over their own bodies and
their fertility
 Gender equality as one of the main goals of the MDGs and
the post-2015 agenda

5. Gender in relation to sexuality and sexual rights
 Unsafe sex, the risk of HIV and STI transmission , the need
for gender-sensitive programmes to promote safer sex and
reduce unsafe sex and risk-taking
 In the sexual exploitation of young girls and boys
 In the reasons for adolescent pregnancy and early
childbearing
 The need to integrate gender and rights into sexuality
education
 The need for a positive approach to sexuality in sexual
health programmes and services for unmarried as well as
married adolescents.

6. Focusing on men and boys
 Challenging and changing gender attitudes among young
men
 Sexual harassment of adolescent girls by adolescent boys
 Whither contraceptive methods for men
 differences in prevalence of vasectomy vs. female
sterilisation
 widespread use of withdrawal ignored by family
planning professionals
 condoms seen as second rate contraceptives yet are
effective in prevention of most STIs and HIV

7. Gender in SRHR/health policy and programmes
 Gender differences in how various diseases affect women
vs. men, e.g. human papillomavirus
 Gender dimensions of user fees: implications for women’s
utilization of health care
 The need for gender justice for women, e.g. in response to
widespread use of rape in war
 Gender-disaggregation of data in the evaluation of quality
of care

8. RHM papers on rights-based issues

9. Sexual and reproductive health services
 Rights-based SRH services
 access to contraception as part of reproductive rights;
 the right not to be abused during childbirth (WHO);
 the right to be accompanied at birth.
 The right to sexual and reproductive health services in
humanitarian crises

10. Adolescents
 Adolescent and self-efficacy: implications for health
systems and access to services
 Teenage sexuality and rights: from denial to punishment

11. Sexual and reproductive rights
 Who owns the body: contemporary rhetoric on sexual
rights
 Abortion: the legal right has been won, but not the moral
right
 Sexual and bodily rights as human rights
 Disability and reproductive rights
 The right to love: the desire for parenthood among those
living with HIV

12. Sexual and reproductive rights ‒ and human rights
 Sexual and reproductive rights and the human rights
agenda: controversial and contested in UN forums
 Why human rights, reproductive health and economic
justice are indivisible
 The right to health in the post-2015 development paradigm
 Using the right to life to confront unsafe abortion
 Human rights accountability for maternal death and the
failure to provide safe, legal abortion: the significance of
two ground-breaking CEDAW decisions
 Disclosure of HIV status and human rights: the duties and
responsibilities of couples, medical professionals, family
members and the state
 A global social contract to reduce maternal mortality: the
human rights arguments

13. Examples of implementation efforts
 Population, sexual and reproductive health, rights and
sustainable development: forging a common agenda
 Building coalitions to support women's health and rights
 National responses to internationally agreed sexual and
reproductive health and rights goals
 Embedding sexual and reproductive health and rights in a
transformational development framework: lessons learned
from the MDG targets and indicators
 The role of litigation in ensuring women's reproductive
rights: an analysis of a court judgement

14. Gender and rights: important analytical tools but…
 Although the analysis and the demand for change have
become far more sophisticated over the last two decades,
strategies for making change happen are inadequate.
 Means of change are multisectoral and complex…

15. Gender analysis a critical tool, but making change
happen is crushingly slow
 "The new development framework aspires to merge long-term
hopes for environmental, political and financial
sustainability with international poverty eradication goals.
Central to this agenda is the promotion and protection of
the human rights of women and girls. Yet national
mechanisms, donors and international development
agencies often do not fully tackle these issues or confront
the accompanying politically sensitive, complex issues
intermingling religion, socioeconomic status, social, cultural
and family life…
 "Success will require support for a potent mix of advocacy,
movement building and a complex set of ground-based
strategies that shift cultural practices, laws and policies
that harm women and girls."
(Theresa McGovern, RHM 2013;21(42):86-102)

16. Implications
 Research is needed to develop and test effective ways to
reduce gender inequality and respect, protect and fulfill
human rights, and sexual and reproductive rights ‒ to push
us beyond analysis into activism and change on the ground.