HRC 52

The 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council took place from 27 February to 4 April. Below you will find information on some of the key sexual rights-related to resolutions, panel discussions, oral statements and side events.

We welcome the numerous recommendations made to South Africa on adolescent and youth SRHR, access to modern contraceptives, termination of pregnancy services and on accelerating a funded, coordinated, and measurable response to gender-based violence and femicide. We regret the lack of recommendations pertaining to comprehensive sexuality education and remain concerned about its delivery in schools.

We welcome the Netherlands’ support of the recommendation on bringing the legal definition of rape in line with international human rights law, including the Istanbul Convention. We also regret that the Netherlands noted the recommendation to fully implement guidelines for a more gender responsive and intersectional approach to gender-based violence and sexual harassment.

We welcome the robust recommendations addressed to Poland on sexual and reproductive health and rights and women’s rights, and we regret that these did not explicitly include comprehensive sexuality education and access to contraception.

We appreciate Brazil's acceptance of almost all of the recommendations received during its review, and its noting of two recommendations related to a concept of traditional family that does not conform to Brazilian legislation and jurisprudence and which opposes Human Rights.

We regret that India did not receive any HIV/AIDS-related recommendations, despite India having the third highest prevalence of HIV in the world. India needs an efficient HIV prevention programme which includes PrEP rollout, improved access to routine HIV screening and testing, and most crucially, treatment and excellent patient care.

Indonesia must adopt evidence-based policies to ensure that adolescents and young people have adequate access to sexual and reproductive health information and services. Adolescents and young people, particularly in the eastern part of Indonesia, still lack the information they need to help them to exercise their agency, and to make more informed decisions for their bodies and lives.

The UK’s Gender Recognition Act, which sets out the process by which trans people can gain legal gender recognition, was passed almost 20 years ago. Whilst at the time it was considered world-leading, it has now fallen far behind international best practice and human rights standards.

Decriminalisation of abortion in Poland is imperative. The recent case of criminal conviction of an activist who helped in abortion and persistent denials of legal abortion services demonstrate that only full liberalisation and decriminalisation of abortion would make a change in the Polish context.

While Special Procedures present unique opportunities for rights-holders' participation and analysis, inconsistent participation avenues across mandates and reliance on individual mandate-holders' initiative and available resources hinder their effectiveness.

Big pharma and vaccine hoarding governments are responsible for 1.3 million avoidable deaths in the first year of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. That is 1 death every 24 seconds. As a test of international cooperation and human rights, this is nothing short of abject failure.

We note that the Expert pointed out the seriousness of the fact that in 40 years of democracy, the Argentine State, which tried those responsible for the last civil-military dictatorship, has not implemented any mechanism to find the truth in relation to the foreign debt taken by the dictatorship itself. For at least 30 years there has been a social demand to audit foreign debt and cancel the debt contracted by the dictatorship, because it is not legitimate.

Side-event during the 52nd session on the UN Human Rights Council Monday 20 March 13:00 to 14:00 CEST In person: Palais des Nations, Room XXII Online on Zoom: https://bit.ly/HealthRightsSRI