Female Human Rights Entitlements

"In this context, we are talking about the human rights entitlements of survivors of sexual violence. And as chair of the resolution they are blocking the acknowledgement that these women and girls are entitled to a comprehensive package of services such as ... emergency contraception, safe abortion, post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV infection, diagnosis and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, among others.
"Women in Canada are entitled to these services, but Canada is doing a disservice to women and girls around the world."
Sandeep Prasad, Action Canada for Population and Development

"Words on paper in Geneva can seem a little far from our reality ... but it sets a tone that tends to be translated into program and funding priorities.
"We want that Canada wants for the world what it wants for Canadians. We would like to see Canada advocating for a full range of sexual and reproductive health services for all women and men -- not just Canadians."
Jackie Hansen, Amnesty International

Canada is chairing negotiation of an annual resolution in Geneva. The resolution is one on violence against women, passed through the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council. And Canada is being accused by Canadian NGOs of bypassing some critical elements that should be addressed, such as access to sexual and reproductive health services. Which would include abortion for survivors of rape as an example.

In 2010 when Canada hosted the G-8 and G-20 meetings, the Government of Canada put forward a major initiative to fund improved maternal and child health internationally. Missing from Canada's position at that time was a commitment within the larger picture was Canadian funding for abortion services. Yet without a useful alternative access to safe abortions, and useful reproductive health services that commitment is not complete; the glaring absence of both abortion and contraceptive devices in counselling and providing women with what they need is incomplete.

"Canada is a world leader in the protection and promotion of the rights of women and girls. We continue to focus on concrete measures aimed at improving the lives of women and girls around the world", Rick Roth, spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird stated in response to critics. And that is true enough -- in Canada, but it does not appear to be the entire truth -- on the international scene. Not with the omission of those two critical areas that must be addressed for a complete package of assistance to women and children in need.

It remains uncertain whether Canada is engaging in international diplomacy by not pushing for the inclusion of abortion access and reproductive health services. That pressure from countries like Russia, for example, insisting on altering wording that does not accord with their own measures in protecting vulnerable women, may have led Canada to make conciliatory gestures to ensure that the resolution get passed.

In the worst possible scenario, there is a country like El Salvador where abortion is illegal, much as it is in Ireland and many other countries of the world. Even if a therapeutic abortion is advised in a desperate measure to save a mother's life it cannot be undertaken in El Salvador. Roughly 600 women have been imprisoned after having undergone abortions, some for as long as ten years. Ireland refused an abortion to a woman of East Indian extraction whose state of health was perilous as a result of her pregnancy, and she died, raising an outcry against Ireland's unremittingly unmoving refusal to allow abortion in any circumstances.

Canada, as an enlightened country with its own outstanding social-medical programs, should use its influence to persuade socially backward patriarchal societies disinterested in providing women with safeguards against unwanted pregnancies to see their responsibility in providing equal and just treatment to all their citizens. We are philosophically and socially obliged to do so.