WO=MEN in New York

This is it. The delegates have finally reached consensus, after a long week of confusing and often tedious negotiations. Maybe we should be a little more excited about this, but, to be very frank, we did not have much influence on what went on in the negotiation room. Every progressive statement on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) was subsequently met with much opposition of the Arab group and the African group. Especially the latter was very insistent on not having any references to anything  ‘sexual’, whatever that might mean. The most frustrating part for us was that, even though we know there are progressive African countries, conservative countries like Nigeria did the talking on behalf of the African group, without opposition. Only South Africa stood up to protect SOGI and SRHR, like they have done in the past, and we thank them for that. But, all disappointment a...

It’s the final day of the CPD and we’re far behind. To give you sense of exactly how behind we are, the commission traditionally goes through at least three readings of the text before a consensus is reached. As of this morning, the second reading has not even been completed. Furthermore, the ‘operational paragraphs’ which contain the important legislative clauses, have barely been touched. Yesterday night the negotiations lasted until 10:30pm and the delegates left the hall with a tangible sense of frustration. The problem is two-fold. The facilitator of the negotiations from the Philippines is being incredibly inefficient. The negotiations are moving forward at a snail’s pace and tolerating long irrelevant soliloquies discussing, for instance, the exact definition of internal migration. A Brazilian delegate posed the question if her personal move from downtown to uptown Rio would be considered internal migration. Unfortunately, it was not uncommon to see such personal, or irrel...

Time is flying here at the Commission of Population and Development. Yesterday was an important day for the host of progressive youth organizations here at the CPD because the speaker’s list opened for NGOs to give oral statements. CHOICE for Youth and Sexuality was given a speaking slot via RutgersWPF and we contributed to writing a strong statement about migration and SRHR from a youth perspective. We invite you to read it at   here . Today (Thursday) will prove to be an extremely important day in the negations room. Including language on sexuality and reproductive health rights is proving to be an uphill battle in the midst of debate largely focused on population dynamics. Whi le a few key countries continue to strongly support this language, as expected, traditional progressive allies have become unpredictable and are positing their own migration issues higher than our fundamental human rights.   We are currently reviewing the second round of amendments to the z...

Today is day one of the 46 th session  of the Commission on Population & Development (CPD) in New York . The CPD is an important conference that has taken place every year since the 1994 International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) in Cairo . The ICPD was a milestone in the history of population development, adopting a rights based approach. 179 governments committed to providing universal access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health services and reproductive rights (SRHR) as well as delivering gender equality. During the past 19 years, the global SRHR alliance has made a series of significant victories. For instance, during last year’s CPD conference themed ‘Youth and Adolescents’ governments agreed to provide “youth-friendly” SRHR services “free of discrimination.” Step by step, governments are broadening their human rights promises and we can expect an exciting review process next year in 2014. This year, however, we have one more challenging hu...

Yesterday the Acting Head of UN Women, Ms. Lakshmi Puri organized an informal discussion in Brussels on the outcome of and follow-up to the 57 th session of the CSW and around the post-2015 MDG framework, post-Rio+20 . About CSW , Ms. Lakshmi highlighted the preparation before the event, including the UN System (e.g. working together with UNESCO about Comprehensive Sexuality Education), Member States (e.g. regional meetings with ministerial national machineries before CSW that allowed working not only with the vision of FA ministries but also with Gender ministries) and CSOs (that helped with conceptualizations that were successfully included in the agreed conclusions like Women’s rights defenders and survivors). About the Conclusions, she highlighted the comprehensive definition of VAW, the inclusion of vulnerable groups and intersectionality, and the emphasis on prevention that includes equal systems and empowerment, and SRHR. UN Women wanted to include CSE and awa...