A quarterly international newsletter on sexuality, sexual health, and sexuality education.
Volume 2, Issue 2 - Fall/Winter 2002
Making the Connection Between Health, Sexuality, and Human Rights
In the 54 years since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, countries worldwide have increasingly assumed responsibility for health and human rights.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1979 was one of the first covenants that recognized the view that women’s control over their reproductive health and sexuality were fundamental human rights necessary for their ability to enjoy political, economic, and social freedoms.
Yet the actual linkages between health, sexuality, and human rights were not recognized until a number of recent events brought them together.
The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994 and the Fourth International Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 clearly advanced the intrinsic connections between health, sexuality, and human rights.
The language and notion of “human rights” attempts to equalize the status and self-respect of all people as human beings worthy of dignity, respect, and self-determination.
One outcome of sexuality education, when it is comprehensive and non-judgmental, is that it can promote acceptance and understanding of different beliefs, attitudes, and sexual orientations. Access to sexuality information and services is integral to peoples’ ability to enjoy and express their sexuality and sexual rights.
Information and education about sexuality still has a way to go to ensure that all people will grow up and thrive in an environment that respects and promotes both their human rights and sexuality.
This issue of Making the Connection describes some of the remarkable people and effective programs that are advancing and promoting the human rights of people to enjoy their lives and their sexuality.
By sharing the frameworks of successful programs, SIECUS hopes to provide a forum to help our colleagues catalyze the global movement of sexual and reproductive health, education, and rights.
Contact us if you would like printed copies of Making the Connection. If you would like to share a program, a new resource, or a strategy that promotes sexuality education, sexual health and rights, send them to SIECUS at:
SIECUS
Making the Connection
130 West 42nd Street, Suite 350
New York, NY 10036-7802
Phone: 212/819-9770, extension 311
Fax: 212/819-9776
E-mail: intl@siecus.org
Reproductive Health Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes. Reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility which are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant. In line with the above definition of reproductive health, reproductive health care is defined as the constellation of methods, techniques and services that contribute to reproductive health and well-being by preventing and solving reproductive health problems. It also includes sexual health, the purpose of which is the enhancement of life and personal relations, and not merely counseling and care related to reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases. ICPD Programme of Action, Paragraph 7.2 |
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