While this page is under construction, we wanted to give you a few key pieces of information on our work at the Human Rights Council [or at the United Nations] and to give you links for further information… 

Work at the United Nations is one of ACPD’s main areas of activity.  Within this UN work, the Human Rights Council is the venue in which ACPD primarily focuses its advocacy.  The Human Rights Council is the primary international human rights body comprised of governments from around the world.  Its mandate is to strengthen the promotion and protection of all human rights for everyone around the globe.  ACPD seeks to ensure that this body addresses issues of sexual and reproductive rights from a progressive perspective within the Council’s work on addressing human rights issues and ensuring that rights are realized.

ACPD is a founding member of a 5-organization coalition known as the Sexual Rights Initiative and carries out its work primarily in partnership with the other 4 human rights organizations within this partnership, all of whom focus on different aspects sexual and reproductive rights.  The other members of the Sexual Rights Initiative are:

• Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA; India)
• Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
• Federation for Women and Family Planning (Poland)
• Mulabi – Espacio Latinoamericano de Sexualidades y Derechos

The Sexual Rights Initiative has two major goals:

1. To ensure that Sexual Rights, as a particular set of rights and as a cross-cutting issue, are advanced within international law, and specifically within the work of the Human Rights Council; and
2. To promote and embody a different style of South-North collaboration, aimed at genuine sharing of and open discussion around power, access and resources.

The Sexual Rights Initiative adopts a broad definition of “sexual rights” as including all issues relating to the right of everyone to have control over and decidw freely on all matters related to their sexuality, reproduction, and gender free from violence, coercion, and discrimination.  Thus, “sexual rights” encompasses a great number of issues, including: reproductive health and rights, sexual orientation/gender identity and expression, sex work, HIV/AIDS, freedom from sexual violence and exploitation, the right to sexuality information and education, and the right to access sexual and reproductive health services.

ACPD also partners with other like-minded human rights organizations on issues of mutual interest, such as issues confronting human rights organizations and defenders generally including: NGO participation at the Council and ensuring the independence of the Council’s system of Special Procedures, a group of over 40 independent experts (most of whom are known as “Special Rapporteurs” or “Special Representatives”) who are each mandated to report on a particular country or thematic human rights issue.  Many Special Procedures, including the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, have been critical in giving international attention to and advancing sexual rights issues.  ACPD continues to act in support of the critical work of the Council’s system of Special Procedures as a matter of importance to the realization of all human rights, including sexual and reproductive rights.

For more information on the structure, membership and work of the Human Rights Council, click here.  For further information about the Council’s system of Special Procedures, and to find reports of different Special Procedures, click here.

Human Rights and Maternal Mortality and Morbidity – ACPD has been a leader over the last 2 years in advancing at the Human Rights Council the issue of maternal mortality and morbidity as a violation of the human rights of women and adolescent girls.  This major area of ACPD’s work with governments and other human rights organizations culminated in June in the adoption of Human Rights Council 11/8 entitled “Preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights”.  This resolution represents the first intergovernmental recognition that maternal mortality and morbidity is a human rights issue and must be addressed as such.  Click here to see a press release jointly released by ACPD and two partner organizations on the adoption of the resolution.  Click here to see the full text of the resolution.

Beijing +15 – The year 2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995.  There will be a number of events throughout the year to commemorate what is informally called “Beijing +15”.  The upcoming session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women represents one of the main opportunities for the international community to examine how governments have done to realize women’s rights and eliminate gender inequality over the last 15 years.  For more information on the session, scheduled to take place from the 1st to 12th of March 2010 in New York, click here.