Sexual and Reproductive Rights

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A space for collective learning, participation and diverse and regional organization: this was the Feminist Forum of the XV Regional Conference on Women held at the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Ex ESMA) on November 7 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Constitutional Court accumulated 19 cases involving women who, at the time of the events in question, were pregnant, lactating, or on maternity leave, and worked in various positions in the public sector governed by the Organic Law of Public Service (LOSEP). The Court addresses the violation of pregnant and lactating women’s rights and provides further protections by formally recognizing the right to care.

Petitioners challenged the Ugandan Government’s failure to provide basic maternal health services in violation of (1) the right to health, (2) the right to life, and (3) the right of women, under the Constitution.

In 2014 and 2015, an outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone forced schools to close for nine months. One consequence of the closures was a significant spike in pregnancies among teenage girls (in some areas, rates went up 65%). As a result, the then-Minister of Education, Science and Technology publicly stated that pregnant girls would not be able to attend mainstream schools while they were pregnant in order to avoid adversely influencing their peers.

The petitioner, Sandesh Bansal, is a health activist and member of Jan Adhikaar Manch, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) working to raise concern over the high maternal mortality rate (MMR) in Madhya Pradesh as a part of their “Save our Mothers” campaign. The case was also part of Human Rights Law Network’s (HRLN’s) national litigation strategy to address India’s high maternal mortality and morbidity rates. Petitioner alleged that the state failed to provide basic and adequate maternal healthcare.

Kenyan High Court finds violations of rights to health, dignity, and personal integrity in maternal healthcare case

J.M. sought maternal health care in the Bungoma District Hospital, now the Bungoma County Referral Hospital. This hospital is a public health care facility that, in line with the President of Kenya’s 2013 Presidential Directive, was supposed to provide free maternal health care. At the hospital, J.M. was told to pay for medicine to induce her labor, and after her labor was induced, she was ordered to walk to the delivery room when her labor pains started. She followed the directive, found the delivery beds occupied, and had started to return to the labor ward, when she fainted.

 

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