| BURNING
ISSUE
The coalition of 8
organizations advocating for sexual rights form Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle
East, Eastern Europe, and North America delivered a statement which was presented during
the 2nd session of the Human Rights Council by Sandeep Prasad of ACPD (Action Canada for
Population and Development).
In their statement the advocates recommended that a Special Procedure mandate on emerging
issues be created to investigate and report on human rights issues that do not fall within
an existing mandate or are peripheral issues within a mandate. This Special Procedure
would also have authority to give recommendations to the Council on mandate creation. It
could be constituted as a working group of independent human rights experts with
experience in diverse areas of human rights. The sexual rights advocates believe that such
Special Procedure would allow unexamined or under-examined issues to receive attention
they deserve. “Since sexuality is central to being human, sexual rights should be among
the first issues to be addressed by this new Special Procedure” says the statement. It
also stresses that the sexual and reproductive rights are not adequately protected by the
present Special Procedures system. Several issues which belong to the area of sexual
rights are either not covered by the existing mandates or are only peripheral issues
within a mandate.
Human Rights Council has been established to replace the Commission on Human Rights which
was criticized for its ineffective approach to human rights violations caused mainly by
the fact that the states responsible for the violations were often part of the Commission.
The newly established Human Rights Council is subsidiary directly to UN General Assembly
while the Commission was reporting to ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council). According to
paragraph 6 of the GA resolution establishing the HRC, the Council should “assume,
review and when necessary improve all mandates, mechanisms, functions and
responsibilities” of the Commission and work out, within a year after its first session,
a system of special procedures, expert advice and a complaint procedure.
Due to the large number of draft proposals the Human Rights Council has suspended its
second session until 27 November. When the Council concludes taking action on these
proposals, it will immediately open its third session.
More information on UNHRC second session
available at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/2session/index.htm
REGIONAL
UPDATES
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sakhalin: Pipeline
projects generating increased prostitution and HIV/AIDS. According to the report released by CEE Bankwatch
Network and Gender Action the pipeline projects conducted by BP in Azerbaijan and Georgia
(BTC) and by Shell on Sakhalin Island (Sakhalin II) have had grave gender impact on local
communities resulting in the increased poverty, prostitution, occurrence of stillbirths,
HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The authors stress that neither the World Bank nor the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), involved in the BTC project as
lenders, have safeguard policies protecting human rights of women.
http://www.genderaction.org/images/boomtimeblues.pdf
Kyrgyzstan: domestic violence and
bride-kidnapping. According
to Human Rights Watch report “Reconciled to Violence: State Failure to Stop Domestic
Abuse and Abduction of Women in Kyrgyzstan”, the government, despite progressive law,
does not provide the victims of violence against women with access to justice and
protective measures. Apart from domestic violence the report addresses the issue of
abductions of girls and women for forced marriage, a practice known as
“bride-kidnapping”. Although the act is being described by the officials as harmless
and voluntary, women’s experiences prove it to be traumatic and violent. Although there
are no statistical data on the number of such incidents or marriages resulting from
kidnapping, the experts agree that the phenomena is on the rise. One of the reasons the
practice is difficult to uproot is the belief that it is the part of the Kyrgyz tradition.
However, NGO leaders and sociologists who examined the issue from a historical perspective
say that marriages were traditionally arranged in Kyrgyzstan and abduction was rare in the
past. These findings may help to implement laws against this form of violence and
eradicate the abusive custom.
Human Rights Watch:
http://hrw.org/ http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/27/kyrgyz14261.htm
Poland: Secretary General of the Council
of Europe concerned over homophobia in Poland. Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of
Europe, in an open letter sent to Polish daily “Gazeta Wyborcza” expressed his
dissatisfaction with the explanations provided by the Polish government in reaction to the
Council’s request for justification of the dismissal of the Director of National
In-Service Teacher Training Center Miros³aw Sielatycki. Sielatycki was dismissed by
Minister of Education, Roman Giertych, in June 2006 for issuing the Polish version of the
Council’s official publication Compass – a manual on Human Rights Education for Young
People. Since Compass addresses, among other issues, the problem of discrimination based
on sexual orientation, Roman Giertych has found the manual unacceptable and decided that
it “promotes homosexuality”. In his letter Terry Davis expressed concern about “some
politicians promoting homophobia (…) and homophobic behaviours being accepted by the
Government”. Davis stressed that education plays a key role in promoting the culture of
tolerance and Compass is a valuable tool for educating young people in the field of human
rights.
Federation for Women and Family Planning
* * *
The Confederal Group of the European
United Left – Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in collaboration with the vice-chairperson of
the Parliamentary Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality endorsed the letter to the President, Sejm and Senate
of the Republic of Poland in which
they expressed their deep concern following the proposal of the League of Polish Families
to change the Polish Constitution in order to protect “the life of human beings form the
moment of conception”. The letter contains an appeal to the Polish authorities to refuse
all proposals that lead to limiting women's human rights: their right to life, health and
dignity. http://www.federa.org.pl/english/news/Pologne.pdf
Russia: Access to Antiretroviral Drugs.
The Pharmaceutical Company
GlaxoSmithKline will supply the Russian government with 90,000 treatment packs of its
antiretroviral drugs at discounted prices. This will help Russian authorities to meet
their target and provide treatment to 15,000 HIV-infected persons by the end of 2006.
Russian government plans to treat 30,000 HIV-patients in 2007.
Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report
Central and Eastern Europe: ASTRA Youth
recommendations to DG SANCO. In the ASTRA Youth open letter to Robert Madelin, the head of Health and
Consumer Directorate General, young people addressed the situation of young people in the
CEE and Balkan countries in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Young people called upon
the participants of the EU HIV/AIDS roundtable, which took place on 2 October, to take
actions in order to guarantee young people from the region access to compulsory and
comprehensive sexuality education. They stressed that measures undertaken to improve
youth’s situation should ensure inter alia that sexuality education - scientifically
based and non-biased and matching young people’s needs – is provided at schools and
young people have access to youth friendly reproductive and sexual health services.
ASTRA Secretariat
GLOBAL UPDATES
United Kingdom: Emergency contraception and
abortion. The statistics in
the UK show that the increased use of emergency contraception has not decreased the rate
of abortions. The EC has been available without prescription since 2001. Over the counter
sales increased from 27 percent of all sales in 2003/2004 to 50 percent in 2004/2005.
According to professor Anna Glasier, the director of family planning at the Lothian
Primary Care NHS Trust in Edinburgh, women do not use emergency contraceptive pills even
if they have them because they often are not aware that they are at risk of becoming
pregnant. For some experts this proves that emergency contraception, although very useful
for individual women, should not be treated by public health system as a method for
reducing the number of unintended pregnancies. The focus should be rather on prevention
before or during sex.
BBC
European Union: HPV Vaccine approved for
sale. The European Commission
approved Gardasil, human papillomavirus vaccine, for sale in the EU. The vaccine will be
sold by Sanofi Pasteur by the end of October. According to Merck, which is the producer,
the vaccine fully protects women, who do not have the virus, against HPV infection with
strains 16 and 18, which together are responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer cases,
and is about 99 percent effective with HPV strains 6 and 11. Gardasil, which also prevents
vaginal and vulvar cancer, will be marketed in EU to girls and women aged 9-26.
Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy
WHO: AIDS treatment access resolution
dropped because of US position.
The resolution calling for universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment has been withdrawn from
WHO Asia-Pacific conference after the United States proposed its amendments. US officials
pushed for removing phrases of support for needle exchange programs for drug addicts which
aim at stopping the spread of HIV. Apart from that American officials insisted on changing
the wording on high risk groups, including sex workers, intravenous drug users and men
having sex with men. After the negotiations failed the New Zealand Health Minister Pete
Hodgson, who chaired the conference, put it to the meeting that it was better not to have
a resolution than to have one which would be weakened.
The Associated Press
Council of Europe: hearing on
prostitution. At the
hearing organized by Minodora Cliveti, the Chairperson of the Committee on Equal
Opportunities for Women and Men of Parliamentarian Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE), a comparative study of the situation of sex workers in member states was discussed
by parliamentarians and experts. The motion for a resolution of PACE says that the
differing legal status of prostitution in the European countries hinders the attempts to
effectively fight forced prostitution, which is the only form of prostitution that is
condemned in all states of Europe. Minodora Cliveti stressed that in countries where
prostitution is a crime the penalties are usually stricter for prostitutes, most of whom
are women, than for clients. This leads to unacceptable discrimination against women when
prostitution is concerned.
European Council Portal
UPCOMING EVENTS
IAPAC European Sessions 2006. The third annual IAPAC Sessions will take place on
12-13 October 2006 in Budapest, Hungary. The symposium is co-hosted by International
Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (IAPAC) and European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS).
IAPAC European Sessions is allows HIV-treating healthcare professionals to learn from each
other while working toward solutions to on-going clinical questions. The program of
the meeting is available at: http://www.iapac.org/home.asp?pid=7023
International Conference on HIV
Treatment Adherence. International
Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (IAPAC) organizes the 2nd International Conference
on HIV Treatment Adherence which will take place on 28-30 March 2007 in Jersey City, USA.
The goal of the conference is to provide an international forum for the presentation and
discussion of state-of-the-science HIV treatment adherence research, as well as current
behavioral and clinical perspectives in practicum. More information on registration and
abstract submission deadlines at: http://www.iapac.org/home.asp?pid=7973
European AIDS Conference/EACS. The European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) organizes
11th biennial European conference on clinical aspects and treatments of HIV. The meeting
will take place 24-27 October 2007 in Madrid, Spain. The information on registration and
submission deadlines are available at: http://www.eacs-conference2007.com/
LINKS
The UN Millennium Development
Goals Report Statistical Annex 2006: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Data/UNSD%20MDG%20Report%202006%20Statistical%20Annex%20r15.pdf
Violence against Women in
Georgia, August 2006. Alternative report, submitted on the occasion of the 36th
session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women by World
Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA):
http://www.omct.org/pdf/vaw/2006/CEDAW_36th/cedaw36_vaw_in_georgia_en.pdf
PUBLICATIONS
IAPAC 2006 Antiretroviral Drug Guide. The guide
features 20 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antiretroviral drugs currently
used in the clinical management of HIV disease. Listings are by brand name within the four
classes of antiretroviral drugs: nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI),
nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), protease inhibitor (PI), and fusion
inhibitor (FI). The guide is available at: http://www.iapac.org/home.asp?pid=7288
Georgia: Thousands suffering in silence: Violence against
women in the family, Amnesty International, 2006. Report informs about tens of thousands of women in Georgia hit, beaten,
raped and in some cases even killed by their husbands or partners. It outlines the
government failure to protect women from further violence, to deal with complaints and to
initiate criminal prosecutions. It calls on the authorities to implement recent
legislation. It also includes testimonies of women who have survived domestic violence.
More information on the report available at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/georgia/document.do?id=ENGEUR560092006
Caucasia Magazine – Gender & Health, August 2006. The international information-analytical electronic magazine
issued by International Coalition of Gender Journalists available at: http://www.gmc.ge/images/04KAVKAZIAJ-01E.html
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