Autonomy vs Protectionism looking back on our HRC 53 Side-event

In 2004, in an article titled “Sexuality, Violence Against Women, and Human Rights: Women Make Demands and Ladies Get Protection”, the legal scholar Ali Miller outlined a paradox. Despite the recognition of women’s human rights and increasing attention paid to violence against women in countless spaces, including through the media, the violence was not understood, prevented or adequately responded to. Miller points to two interconnected phenomena to explain this paradox. Firstly, the rise and practice of respectability politics. Due to this, more ‘explosive’ aspects of sexuality such as desire or autonomy are set aside in favour of issues that present less challenge to the systems of patriarchy, racism and class. And secondly, protectionism.
Analysis
Bodily autonomy
Protectionism

HRC 53 SRI Statement to the Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Racism

Statement

The relationship between health, race, caste, class and gender is rooted in colonial, patriarchal and capitalist control over women’s sexuality, reproduction and bodies and produces distinct experiences of oppression that are often fatal. Racialised women are specifically targeted by harmful stereotypes, the essentialisation of women to their reproductive capacities, forced sterilisation, forced pregnancies and chromosomal testing in sporting events through state interventions or purposeful inaction. This has profound impacts on their health and human rights.

Racial discrimination
Right to health
Sexual and reproductive health and rights

HRC 53 JOICFP and partners Joint Statement to Japan's UPR

Statement
JOICFP delivers this statement on behalf of 9 partner organizations on the issues related to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR in short). We deeply regret that Japan did not accept the recommendations it received on decriminalization of abortion, removal of spousal consent requirement for abortion, revision of law that forces sterilization to trans-persons under the legal gender recognition process, and implementation of comprehensive sexuality education.
Abortion
Forced sterilization
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Comprehensive sexuality education
Contraception

HRC 53 Hi Voices, the Pact and SRI Statment to Pakistan's UPR

Statement
We regret that Pakistan did not receive any recommendations on its HIV/AIDS response, as Pakistan has one of the highest rates of new HIV infection in South Asia. Only 12% of people living with HIV can access treatment, and the public healthcare delivery system faces uneven distribution of health professionals among provinces and towns, a deficient workforce, insufficient funding and limited access to quality healthcare services.
HIV and AIDS
Decriminalization
Contraception

HRC 53 Forum for Dignity Initiatives, Asia Pacific Alliance for Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights and SRI Statement to Pakistan's UPR

Statement

We welcome the recommendations made to Pakistan on protecting women’s rights, the rights of transgender people, and sexual and reproductive rights.

We are concerned by the recent regressive ruling by the Federal Shariat court, which struck down key sections of the Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act 2018.

Sexual orientation and gender identity
Sexual and reproductive health and rights

HRC 53 SRI, Santé Sexuelle & partners' Statement to Switzerland UPR

Statement
We regret Switzerland’s inconsistent approach to recommendations received on addressing racism and racial discrimination. We remain concerned by structural racism in Switzerland, and its varied manifestations as illustrated through barriers to accessing affordable health services or housing, through restrictive immigration rules and related border harassment, or through a lack of accountability for racial profiling, police harassment, brutality, and murder- as recently exemplified through the acquittal of the police officers who murdered Mike Ben Peter.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights
Comprehensive sexuality education
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Contraception
Racial discrimination

HRC 53 Alliance for Accountability Advocates Zambia (AAAZ) and SRI Statement to Zambia's UPR

Statement
Although progress has been made in Zambia’s HIV/AIDS response including a general drop in new infections, there has been an increase in new infections amongst youth and adolescents. Zambia needs to increase the roll out of youth-friendly health services, clarify the policy position on the age of consent to health services, and it needs to ensure that young people and adolescents have access to HIV testing, treatment and care.
HIV and AIDS
Adolescents and youth
Comprehensive sexuality education
Abortion
Right to education

HRC 53 the PACT, Red Juvenil de Asociación de Mujeres Gente Nueva and SRI Statement to Guatemala's UPR

Statement
We regret that Guatemala has noted all the recommendations pertaining to the closing of civil society space, creating an enabling environment for civil society organisations to operate, protecting the rights of human rights defenders, and pertaining to meeting its obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of women and the rights of LGBT+ persons.
Civil society participation
Adolescents and youth
Sexual and reproductive health and rights
Freedom of expression
Freedom of assembly and association

HRC 53 Youth Action Movement-Ghana (YAM-Gh) and SRI Statement to Ghana's Outcome of the UPR

Statement
We regret that Ghana has taken such an inconsistent approach to the sexual and reproductive health and rights-related recommendations it received during its UPR review, and regret that the addendum to the report does not provide adequate explanations for the chosen approach.
Sexual and reproductive health and rights
Abortion
Contraception
Sexual orientation and gender identity
HIV and AIDS

HRC 53 SRI Statement to the Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women: Social Protection

Statement
Privatisation and financialization of social protection transfer responsibility and risk, to the individual instead of the state. This has two important consequences: first, it absolves the state from its obligations, and second, structural oppressions, which create and entrench inequalities, continue to operate without any challenge.
Economic justice
Poverty and economic inequality
Bodily autonomy
Sexual and reproductive health and rights

HRC 53 SRI, AWID and FEDERA Statement to the Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women: GBV in public and political life

Statement
From the criminalization of abortion in Poland, to the anti-LGBTIQ+ laws being passed in Uganda, racist anti-migrant laws and policies across Europe and North America, and the push for punitive frameworks against sex work; these attacks aim to construct an exclusionary society that reinforces social hierarchies of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, caste, and class. Make no mistake, this is structural and intentional violence.
Bodily autonomy
Gender-based violence
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Gender-based discrimination

Akãhatã & SRI Statement to the Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on Transnational Corporations

Statement
The social and economic development that transnational corporations were supposed to bring is just a distant promise for Global South countries, as extractivism, degradation of natural resources, privatisation of public resources and violations of human rights are a palpable reality.
Civil society participation
Economic justice
Rights of indigenous peoples
Poverty and economic inequality

HRC 53 FEDERA Statement to the Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on migrants

Statement
We are appalled by the government’s egregious human rights violations against migrants at the Belarus border, often pushed back without access to essential health care or deprived of liberty in closed detention facilities. This includes pregnant women, children, and persons with mental health conditions.

HRC 53 SRI statement: Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health

Statement
Technology and digital innovation have advanced health coverage, particularly sexual and reproductive health, providing spaces for youth, adolescents, and other marginalized communities to access these services without stigma. However, it is essential to underline that we are facing a context where regressive actors are using these same digital platforms to assault women human rights defenders, attacking their privacy and propagate misinformation and disinformation, particularly related to abortion, the rights of trans persons, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and comprehensive sexuality education.
Right to health
Adolescents and youth
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Women human rights defenders
Sexual and reproductive health and rights

HRC 53 Joint Statement: Interactive dialogue with the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls

Statement
Feminists have long understood that poverty is the result of violent impoverishment and (neo)colonial economic exploitation. We know that economic justice is essential for the realization of gender justice - just as it is for racial, disability or climate justice. However, members of this Council continue to treat these issues in siloes, or even as competing human rights concerns.
Economic justice
Colonialism
Bodily autonomy