Find the full statement and list of signatories here: https://www.abortionstatement.org/
- Today, a few hundred ordinary people from 44 countries are sailing toward Gaza to break the siege and open a humanitarian corridor. Our action is rooted in the failure of states to stop the humanitarian catastrophe created by Israel and to end the genocide. Under international humanitarian law, our governments must protect us from any attack on the flotilla. The Human Rights Council must act with clarity and urgency and condemn Israel’s genocide, and call on all states to fulfil their legal obligations. This requires a full arms, trade, and cultural embargo on Israel, and concrete steps to end impunity for these crimes.
- If the Council is truly serious in its objectives to meaningfully integrate a gender perspective into transitional justice processes, States must start their processes with gendered analyses at the centre, not as an add-in later. As 47 Independent UN Experts recently stated, gendered analyses are “essential for exposing power disparities, structural inequalities and discriminatory practices embedded in laws, institutions and social norms. ”
- The UPR is a useful check point for states to reflect on their human rights programming - their best practices, gaps and challenges. It is a continuous reminder that the realisation of human rights should be a regular facet of states’ work, and that we shouldn’t have to wait for crises, emergencies, and conflicts to centre human rights, or to make a voluntary commitment to do better.
- We are deeply concerned by the Sweden’s approach to sex work, which indirectly criminalizes the bodies of sex workers, conflates sex work with trafficking, and exposes sex workers to violence, stigma, and exclusion from democratic participation. The criminalization of sex work forces sex workers to the margins of society. Red Umbrella Sweden members often live in precarious conditions, at constant risk of eviction, homelessness, and social isolation, and often face barriers to accessing health care.
- We are concerned by Kenya’s decision to note the recommendation to amend the Penal Code to decriminalise and legalise abortion. Despite the provisions of Article 26(4) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, which permits abortion under certain grounds, women are still denied access to abortion in Kenya due to a lack of a clear legal and policy framework.
- Armenia must address uneven access to reproductive services, including abortion, which is legally permitted in the country. Rural women, women with disabilities, LBT women and women living with HIV face systemic barriers due to stigma, lack of trained providers, and gaps in service delivery. The government must take proactive steps to ensure abortion is accessible, affordable, and safe for all women, regardless of their social status, genetic or personal characteristics, or geographic location.
- We welcome and deeply appreciate in this regard the recent statement by 47 UN Special Procedures mandate holders which highlighted that legal and policy frameworks that fail to incorporate a gender perspective risk reinforcing, rather than dismantling, structural inequality, and that regressive approaches ignore the lived realities of women and girls, as well as gender-diverse persons, and obscure the root causes of discrimination and violence.
- While the report addresses intersectionality, we regret the lack of mention of sex workers, who are systematically excluded from the social protection system due criminalization, stigma and lack of legal recognition of their work. This exclusion results in a complete lack of access to pensions, health insurance, or income support—harshly felt in older age.
- We remain deeply concerned about the mass incarceration of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women and gender-diverse individuals. While Indigenous people make up only 5 percent of the Canadian population, they represent 32 percent of those in federal custody and half of all federally incarcerated women. This reflects the ongoing impacts of colonialism, systemic discrimination, and trauma.
- We particularly appreciate the reference to the impact of toxic substances on the health of women, adolescents, and girls. Exposure to toxic substances is not limited to working conditions but also includes components of food and plastics, environmental degradation, and fumigation with agrochemicals. The impact of toxic substances on women's reproductive health is a matter of reproductive justice and includes an increase in caregiving tasks, which already fall disproportionately on women.
- Member States must enact laws to prevent harmful practices in medical settings, and to ensure their victims have access to support, truth and reparations. Member States must support intersex-led organizations to provide psychosocial and healthcare services to their communities, and to keep engaging with human rights work.
The report falls short in recognizing that sex workers are disproportionately affected by discrimination. Although the report points out discrimination based on socioeconomic status, it is necessary to directly address the discrimination against people engaged in sex work to help increase its visibility and acceptance of the existence of the problem. We stress that consensual adult sex work is work. To realise the right to development, States should fully decriminalise sex work, recognise labour rights and ensure active, free and meaningful participation in decision making as a key element to the right to development and to achieving the SDG 5.
The false divide between development and gender equality has been weaponized to undermine hard-won progress in gender equality and human rights, threatening the foundations of inclusive, rights-based development, with disproportionate impact on women, girls, and persons with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC).
- We regret that the report omits key issues such as the lack of legal recognition of LGBTIQ+ families and the resulting violation of their right to care, recently recognized as an autonomous right by the Inter-American Court, affecting both adults and their children.
- A solid people-centered approach to the right to development must challenge the dominant global economic paradigm and definition of economic growth, prioritise resource distribution within and between states. The Expert Mechanisms’ recognition of collective rights and responsibilities and systemic violations of human rights of people subjected to colonialism, as well as insistence upon accountability for international development policies, places them in a unique position to do so.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina must undergo extensive legislative reform, and adopt comprehensive policy instruments which inter alia improve its recognition of the rights to private life of same-sex couples, and the rights of transgender and intersex persons to healthcare and legal gender recognition.
- Angola must address violence against women from a broader social justice perspective and strengthen prevention work by getting to the core of the patriarchal ideologies that sustain the violence, countering harmful narratives, and uprooting the norms that perpetuate it.
- We are deeply concerned that the State, by not recognizing these restrictions, did not accept recommendation 122.274, claiming that there is no legal provision that discriminates against transgender people. Likewise, the lack of acceptance of recommendations concerning civil marriage for LGBTIQ+ people, without valid legal justification, disregards the constitutional rule.
- The report on consent presents overly broad generalisations without clear alternatives, grouping diverse industries under uniform criticism. Her paternalistic analysis denies the decision-making autonomy of women, effectively denying their agency under the guise of protection. This protectionist analysis, which is reflected in the Special Rapporteur’s work, scapegoats trans and gender diverse people, creating an artificial hierarchy of rights.