On Sunday February 23, 2014, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights held an event to launch its new report, entitled “Reclaiming and Redefining Rights: ICPD+20 Status of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Middle East and North Africa”. The launch was attended by a number of UN bodies’ representatives in Cairo and civil society practitioners. Dr. Nahla Abd El-Tawab, the Population Council Country officer and Dr. Hala El-Damanhoury, a reproductive health consultant, were keynote speakers.  

The report evaluates the progress made by a select number of countries in the region (six) towards fulfilling their commitments under the International Conference for Population and Development (1994)Programme of Action.  The six countries are: Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, Palestine, Turkey and Tunisia. The report relies on data from different United Nations bodies and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for the countries researched. The report also relies on a wide range of qualitative studies and human rights reports to support the quantitative statistics and data, as well as several interviews with activists and NGOs in the six countries mentioned.  

Using several indicators to measure this progress, the report is divided into three main sections: the first covers the status of women’s rights in the examined countries as well as the health expenditure. The second part uses reproductive health indicators to measure the status of maternal care, abortion, fertility and family planning and reproductive cancers. The third part examines the states’ protection of sexual rights by monitoring sexuality education, sexually transmitted infections, HIV, early marriage, human trafficking and gender based violence in the six countries.

Launched on the occasion of the 20 year review of the Programme of Action, the reports concludes with policy recommendations for countries in the region on reproductive and sexual rights. The report highlights the importance of the commitment of the countries to ensuring and guaranteeing for its citizens and residents access to affordable and of good quality comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. It also recommends to the countries that they review laws that limit the access to the above services for groups who need them, including women and youth.

The report is in English and excerpts of it are available in Arabic.

For English: Click here

For Arabic: Click here