Global and international
Centre for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
CHANGE is a US-based non-governmental organization focused on the effects of US international policy on the health and rights of women, girls and vulnerable populations. CHANGE promotes a reorientation of family planning programmes in support of a stronger rights perspective embracing a broad definition of 'informed choice,' whereby individuals have the conditions and means necessary to make autonomous decisions on their own behalf and are enabled to carry out those decisions in the context of their personal relationships. This implies personal agency and negotiating power, access to a range of information and options, community support for rights, and access to effective means of redress when rights are violated. CHANGE spearheaded a multi-dimensional research and advocacy effort looking at the implications of health reforms for reproductive health and rights. Field research was undertaken in India and Tanzania, exploring how health sector reforms are affecting critical health programmes and services, such as access to safe abortion, STI diagnostics and treatment, and contraceptive supplies, and asked whether current reform strategies have the potential to promote gender equity and reproductive health and rights.
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
DAWN is a 20-year-old network of women scholars and activists from the global South, covering Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific. DAWN offers holistic feminist analyses on development debates and initiatives, grounding their work in women's real experiences and in women's collective strategies and visions. DAWN's research and advocacy work is focused on four theme areas: the political economy of globalization; sexual and reproductive health and rights; political restructuring and social transformation; and sustainable livelihoods. DAWN's website includes 'Reproductive Rights Watch' (a news page on SRHR), as well as 'DAWN Informs' a newsletter published in three languages as an advocacy resource and networking tool. DAWN is undertaking a global policy research project on Health Sector Reform, Maternal Mortality and Abortion, led by Sonia Corrêa, which aims at better understanding how health reform processes are affecting national responses to maternal mortality and postabortion care. A first report of studies from Latin America is expected to be published soon.
Family Care International
Family Care International's mission is to help ensure that women and adolescents have access to the high-quality information and services they need to improve their sexual and reproductive health, experience safe pregnancy and childbirth, and avoid unwanted pregnancy and HIV infection. FCI works in particular on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, safe motherhood and skilled care, and HIV/AIDS, embracing a right-based approach to reproductive health. FCI's website provides access to a range of effective programming guides and useful advocacy materials, including a series of eight briefing cards on sexual and reproductive health and the Millennium Development Goals. The cards can be found at http://www.familycareintl.org/pubs/PDF/SRH13E.pdf.
International People's Health Council
http://www.iphcglobal.org/index.htm
IPHC is a worldwide coalition of people's health initiatives and groups commited to working for the health and rights of disadvantaged people. It views the struggle for health as a struggle for liberation from poverty, hunger and unfair economic structures. IPHC is based in Nicaragua and focuses on network development, capacity building on lobbying and advocacy, and producing publications aimed at policy-makers, journalists, NGOs and the broader public. IPHC runs a 'Globalization and Health Project' that aims to establish an effective South-North lobbying network on economic policies and health, and to ensure critical input into PRSP policy debates and trade negotiations. The Council also publishes the 'Politics of Health Information Bulletin'. IPHC works closely with both PHM and WGNRR on advocacy campaigns.
International Women's Health Coalition
The International Women's Health Coalition works to generate health and population policies, programmes and funding that promote and protect the rights and health of girls and women worldwide. IWHC is involved in policy advocacy on women's sexual and reproductive rights, and provides financial and technical support to organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Among other initiatives, IWHC has supported a network of 24 women's health advocates from around the world known as HERA – Health, Empowerment, Rights & Accountability. HERA's action sheets on the ICPD and Beijing commitments and how they could be implemented through education, advocacy, service delivery and legal and policy change are still relevant and challenging. Available at http://www.iwhc.org/docUploads/HERAActionSheets.PDF.
People's Health Movement (PHM)
The People's Health Movement is a growing coalition of grassroots organizations dedicated to changing the prevailing health care delivery system, which is failing to serve the deteriorating health of most of the poor worldwide. The goal of the Movement is to re-establish health and equitable development as top priorities in local, national and international policy, with comprehensive primary health care as the strategy to achieve these priorities. PHM has developed a 'People's Charter for Health', which is being hailed as the most widely endorsed consensus document on health since the Alma Ata Declaration, as well as a 'People's Charter on HIV and AIDS'. PHA organized the first People's Health Assembly in Bangladesh in December 2000, around which a number of critical issue papers on globalization and health were prepared. These can be accessed at http://www.phmovement.org/pubs/issuepapers/index.html.
Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR)
http://www.wgnrr.nl/startpage.php
The Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights is an autonomous network of groups and individuals around the world working to achieve reproductive rights for women. The network strives for women's rights to self-determination, and argues that work to transform social, political and economic conditions is necessarily part of the reproductive rights agenda if all women are to fully realize their rights. WGNRR's materials, including its website and newsletter, are produced in English, French and Spanish and reflect both global issues and local experiences from all continents. WGNRR coordinates the Women's Access to Health Campaign, which was launched in collaboration with the People's Health Movement in 2003. The core demand of the campaign is that women's right to health is fulfilled by providing primary health care for all peoples everywhere. The campaign launches a Call to Action every year to stimulate action on the 28 May – the International Day of Action for Women's Health. In 2005 the campaign focused on violence against women, and in 2004 on health sector reforms.
Women's Health Project
Through research, training and advocacy, the vision of the Women's Health Project is to create a society respectful of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, in which all people, especially women, have access to, and control over, power and resources including internal psychological resources, enabling them to make decisions that contribute to optimal health and quality lives. Based in South Africa, WHP is active nationally, leading development of a national Sexual Rights Charter, as well as regionally and internationally. WHP coordinates the International Initiative for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Health Reforms (known as the Rights and Reforms Initiative). This research project aims to strengthen the knowledge base regarding the impact of macro-economic policy and health sector reforms on SRHR. The first phase of the project focused on research and literature reviews on health sector reforms in Africa, Asia and Latin America, while the second phase, now ongoing, works to build the capacity of NGOs to identifying and act on windows of opportunity for advocacy, policy and programming interventions offered to improve SRHR. Reports from the first phase are available at: http://www.wits.ac.za/whp/rightsandreforms/.
Women's Link Worldwide
http://www.womenslinkworldwide.org
Women's Link Worldwide is an international NGO that seeks to advance women's rights through application of international human rights law and the use of international tribunals and strategic litigation. Their online database contains case law and other information in areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights, violence against women, and gender discrimination. The website provides extensive information in English and Spanish. The Director of their Gender Justice Programme, Mónica Roa, a Colombian citizen, recently filed a landmark constitutional challenge of Colombia's abortion law in April 2005, arguing that the law, which outlaws abortion under any circumstances, contravenes international human rights instruments to which Colombia is a signatory as well as Colombia's own constitution because it violates women's rights to life, equality, integrity of the person and dignity.
Youth Coalition
The Youth Coalition (YC) is an international organization of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 committed to promoting youth sexual and reproductive rights at the national, regional and international levels. YC members are students, researchers, volunteers, educators and activists. YC promotes recognition that sexual and reproductive rights are human rights, and that they therefore apply equally to young people. YC activities are oriented to enable youth to have a voice in policy and decision-making processes, and to have their views respected and fully incorporated. The Coalition participates in international and intergovernmental conferences and meetings and global dialogues on issues of SRHR, engaging in advocacy, lobbying and educating participants on young people's needs and views. YC members also collaborate with regional organizations to develop and deliver information and advocacy skills training in order to build the capacity of youth activists who are working at the grassroots and national levels on sexual and reproductive rights issues. YC produces a quarterly publication The Watchdog. The website also contains links to all the international treaties, plans of action and declarations that are relevant to youth sexual and reproductive rights, as well as some fact sheets, backgrounders, and guides to provide young people knowledge about processes and issues integral to effective advocacy.
Regional and national organizations
Africa
AMANITARE – the African Partnership for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women and Girls
AMANITARE is a 10-year initiative launched in 2000 to create a coordinated pan-African effort to consolidate the skills, knowledge and institutional resources of groups and individuals active in the field of sexual and reproductive health, gender equality and women's rights. The partnership is founded on agreement that there are three fundamental principles essential to the movement for achieving sexual and reproductive rights in Africa, namely the rights of all women and girls, regardless of circumstance to bodily integrity and sexual autonomy; sexual enjoyment and healthy reproduction; and protection from the threat of death or disease as a result of their reproductive functions, and freedom from any form of coercion, violence or punishment as a means to controlling sexuality and fertility. AMANITARE facilitates the exchange of information, technical skills, leadership training and institutional capacity building for African NGOs to prioritize and promote issues of sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls in their national public policy agendas. AMANITARE Voices is the partnership's newsletter. This and other resources, including papers from AMANITARE's February 2003 conference on African Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, are available on the website (currently undergoing reconstruction).
Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health – EQUINET
EQUINET is a network of professionals, civil society members and policy makers who are working to promote policies for equity in health in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Differences in health status that are unnecessary, avoidable and unfair typically relate to disparities across racial groups, rural/urban status, socioeconomic status, gender, age and geographical region. EQUINET is building the capacity and networking of institutions in southern Africa; supporting and undertaking research to produce policy-relevant evidence; disseminating information through conferences, workshops, internet, and a monthly newsletter; and engaging SADC and other stakeholders in policy dialogue on equity in health.
Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP)
TGNP is a Tanzanian NGO focusing on the practical promotion and application of gender equality and equity objectives through policy advocacy and mainstreaming of gender and pro-poor perspectives at all levels in Tanzanian society. TGNP programming focuses in three main areas: activism, lobbing and advocacy; training, capacity building and outreach; and information generation and dissemination. TGNP has researched and developed advocacy materials on the impact of user fees in the health and education sectors in Tanzania, and has both English and Kiswahili publications on the impact of structural adjustment policies and globalization, and the links between patriarchy and globalization. TGNP is also a pioneer of gender budget analysis in Africa.
Asia
Aahung (Pakistan)
Aahung is a non-profit organization advocating for an enabling environment where every individual's sexual rights are respected, protected and fulfilled as an inalienable human right. Aahung aims to strengthen the clinical service provision of sexual and reproductive health; integrate life skills education in schools; incorporate sexual health in medical curricula; promote a rights-based approach to reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS policies and programmes; and promote gender equitable laws and policies in Pakistan. Aahung's website includes a Sexuality Information Centre with information on sexual health and sexual rights, as well as pages tailored for youth, adults, healthcare providers, parents and educators.
Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW)
ARROW is a regional NGO based in Kuala Lumpur that is committed to promoting and protecting women's health rights and needs, particularly in the areas of women's sexuality and reproductive health. ARROW produces, collects and disseminates innovative information and materials on critical women's health issues regionally, and works to build local NGO capacity for evidence-based monitoring and policy advocacy. Current research projects include partnering on the Rights and Reform initiative (see Women's Health Project above), documenting laws and policies affecting women's reproductive lives in East and South-East Asia, and monitoring action and advocacy related to the ICPD 10 years on. Since 1999, ARROW is also the coordinating office for the International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group (IRRRAG), coordinating a global five-country study entitled 'Women's Reproductive and Sexual Health: Investigating Male Involvement'.
Latin America
Articulation Feminista Macrosur (AFM)
http://www.mujeresdelsur.org.uy/
AFM was formed through joint critical analysis by feminist organizations from Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru following the Beijing Conference. AFM leads the campaign AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISMS, PEOPLE ARE FUNDAMENTAL, which aims to multiply voices expressing firm opposition to discriminatory social practices, discourses and representations, which oppress people or leave them in a state of vulnerability. The campaign targets both religious and market fundamentalisms. AFM argues that the struggle for freedom and sexual diversity and abortion is one critical way of opposing fundamentalisms, in order to be able to create a more stimulating and exciting society in which sexual, racial, religious, ethnic and all other types of diversity can be truly valued.
Campaign for an Inter-American Convention for Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights
The campaign aims to create an international human rights instrument for promoting and strengthening the acknowledgment and continuity of sexual rights and reproductive rights, including the legalization of abortion and the acknowledgement of rights related to sexual diversity, arguing that 'when our rights are not clearly and explicitly stated, others can decide what we may or may not say, do and touch.' Note: this website is only available in Spanish.
Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM)
CLADEM is network of women and women's organizations using the law as a tool for social change to achieve the effective defense of women's rights. Formed in 1987, the network links organizations and individuals committed in the promotion of women's rights through different activities: formulating legislative proposals, researching, training, litigating, teaching at universities, informing, communicating and exercising solidarity actions. CLADEM publishes national and regional surveys on sexual and reproductive rights in the region, and also produces a monthly electronic bulletin (in English, Portuguese and Spanish) covering news, proposals and reflections on sexual and reproductive rights from across the region.
Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network (LACWHN)
The Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, LACWHN, is a network of organizations and individuals working to promote women's health and the full exercise of women's human rights and citizenship through the cultural, political and social transformation of the region and the world from a feminist perspective. LACWHN is actively involved in promoting SRHR through monitoring implementation of the Programme of Action from ICPD nationally and regionally, as well as through training programmes on gender and health issues, and through its quarterly magazine Women's Health Journal and an annual Women's Health Collection (both available in English and Spanish). The Network is also undertaking a regional research project looking at the impact of health sector reform on sexual and reproductive rights, and hopes to use the results to develop an agenda and clear tools for advocacy on sexual and reproductive rights in the context of reform.
Rede Feminista de Saude (Brazil)
http://www.redesaude.org.br/index.html
Rede Feminista de Saude is the Brazilian Feminist Network for Health and Reproductive Rights. The network currently has 182 affiliates – feminist groups, NGOs, research groups, health care providers and activists – operating in 20 Brazilian states. The network fosters political action and dialogue with government, including advocacy for women's rights and for government policies supportive of comprehensive healthcare for women. It also produces educational material for healthcare providers and community leaders, disseminates research and information, and serves as a referral link to medical and reproductive health services.
Europe, Middle East and North America:
Action Canada for Population and Development
ACPD's overall goal is to advance action by the Canadian government to meet the commitments that it made in the 1994 Cairo Programme of Action, and, in particular, to meet the financial targets set at Cairo. ACPD engages in policy development and dialogue in three primary issue areas: sexual and reproductive rights; population and the environment; and population, migration and development. ACPD embraces a rights-based approach in all its dialogue, education, advocacy and coalition-building work. Their website contains links to a broad range of sexual and reproductive rights and human rights resources.
ASTRA
http://http://www.astra.org.pl/
Formed in 1999, ASTRA links 23 organizations from 15 different countries, and is the only network focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights in Central and Eastern Europe. In a region characterized by economic and political transition, widening social inequalities, a lack of political will to invest in sexual and reproductive health, and a growing anti-choice movement with strong ties to both the Roman Catholic Church and similar US-based groups, ASTRA provides a collective voice to advocate for policies and programmes that recognize women's and young people's health needs and human rights. Flagship publications include: 'Closing the Gap on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Enlarged European Union'; 'How to use the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in matters of reproductive law', national and regional reports on sexual and reproductive rights in CEE, and a monthly bulletin on sexual and reproductive rights.
Q-Web
http://www.qweb.kvinnoforum.se/
The aim of this site, funded by the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Sida) and the National Institute of Public Health, is to promote women's health and equal rights and to ensure women's control over sexuality and reproduction. It contains sections on the empowerment of women, women's health in a cultural and social context, sexual and reproductive health and rights, violence and abuse, adolescent sexuality, fertility, and gender issues. Each section includes extensive links to other sites on the web and lists of references, papers, and presentations. The site is available in English and Swedish.
Women for Women's Human Rights – New Ways
WWHR – NEW WAYS is an autonomous women's organization based in Turkey, which works toward the promotion of women's human rights on the national, regional and international levels. WWHR's focal areas of work include human rights training for women, and promoting women's sexual and reproductive rights in general, and with a special emphasis on women and sexuality in Muslim societies. WWHR organized a conference on gender, sexuality and law reform in the Middle East, North Africa and South-East Asia in March 2005, and has recently published Gender, Sexuality and the Criminal Laws in the Middle East and North Africa, a comparative study on how gender and sexuality is constructed and regulated in the criminal laws of the region.
Compiled by Morag Humble
