A Choice That Matters.

Menstrual poverty, restrictions on abortion access, forced sterilization, lack of comprehensive sexual education in schools, limited and costly contraception, and gynecological and obstetric violence are widespread lived realities across Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central and North Asia (CEECCNA). While sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) movements in CEECCNA strive to uphold the dignity, access, and human rights of women, trans, and gender non-binary people, they are constrained by deliberately restrictive laws, stigmatization and vilification by governments and conservative groups, and severe limitations on funding.

For decades, SRHR movements in CEECCNA have faced long periods of stagnation and retreat in philanthropic attention and funding. The current wave of global funding cuts only deepens this chronic underfunding—pushing these movements to the brink of survival. To the already existing hardships, the past two years have added layers of rising authoritarianism across CEECCNA, along with increasingly harmful anti-gender and anti-human rights movements that have spread at lightning speed since the invasion of Ukraine. Notably, the single remaining lifeline for SRHR movements—solidarity and funding support—has failed them too, depriving these movements of the chance to move from mere survival to true existence, from resistance to taking root and growing.

In solidarity, dignity, and community with the SRHR movements across the CEECCNA regions, ASTRA Network—a key advocacy voice for SRHR in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia—and Dalan Fund, an intersectional fund resourcing bold political imagination in CEECCNA—are launching this campaign to:

1. Shine a light on the invisible yet defining work of SRHR movements in CEECCNA;
2. Call for broad and sustained allyship in building a supportive ecosystem around these movements; and
3. Inspire and influence funders—both current and new—to meet SRHR movements in this critical moment.