We have the great pleasure to inform that our Spanish page has been re-launched. In this opportunity Alejandra Sardá from Akahatá has written an update of Argentinean sexual politics after the 2015 elections that has been translated to English.
In March–April, SPW has also collected information on outraging state crackdowns on human rights defenders, feminists and LGBT people underway in Egypt and Indonesia. In Egyptian authorities have summoned feminist human rights defenders for interrogation, banned them from travel and attempted to freeze their personal funds and family assets. In Indonesia officials have been acting aggressively against LGBT people in the last months.
Regarding women’s equality politics, Nigeria has also made the headlines with discouraging news. Lawmakers rejected a gender equality bill on the basis of Islamic and Christian views on women’s roles.
On the abortion frontline, as usual, sharp contradictions are to be reported. In Brazil, as analyzed by Sonia Corrêa, regressive trends continue at play in Congress while a structural political crisis is underway, meanwhile the ongoing Zika crisis continue affecting women’s lives. In Poland, pressure is also increasing in the Parliament for a total abortion ban to be adopted. Women have protested by leaving the churches during Sunday masses. In North Ireland women are also being jailed for helping or having abortion.
On the other hand, in Chile, the Lower House of Congress passed a bill that lifts the almost 30-year total ban on abortion in cases of rape, when there is health risk for the mother or when the fetus is not viable. In Guyana, a Supreme Court decision has widen the possibility of access to nonsurgical/medication abortion by allowing midlevel health work to provide abortion pill. And, lastly, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights recommended that Uganda stop impeding access to medical abortion and reproductive health services.
In the realm of sex work and human rights, political developments in France and South Korea are also to be regretted. In the Asian country, the Constitutional Court rejected a petition to overturn a law that punishes sex workers. In France, after more than two years of debate, the Parliament approved the law that criminalizes clients of commercial sex. Check The Guardian and The Independent articles.
We recommend
Papers and articles
Reproductive health, rights and abortion
- “These things are dangerous”: Understanding induced abortion trajectories in urban Zambia, by Ernestina Costa and Susan F. Murray
- Unsafe Abortion Is Common In Tanzania and Is A Major Cause of Maternal Death, a study by Guttmacher Institute, Tanzania’s National Institute for Medical Research and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences
- What Fiji’s Cyclone Winston Can Teach Us About SRHR and Climate Change, from Youth Coalition
- Tackling Zika: Have We Learned Our Lesson on Rights?, by Luisa Cabal and Mariangela Simão
- The confinement of Eve: resolving Ebola, Zika and HIV with women’s bodies?, by Susana T. Fried and Alice Welbourn
Sex Work
- Three myths about sex work that harm everyone, by Joe Scott from Open Democracy
Sexual orientation and gender identity, queer studies
- New issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies with the theme “Area Impossible: The Geopolitics of Queer Studies“
- Gender incongruence of childhood in the ICD-11: controversies, proposal, and rationale, by Jack Drescher, Peggy T Cohen-Kettenis, Geoffrey M Ree
- Human rights contestations: sexual orientation and gender identity, by Anthony Tirado Chase
- Lebanon: How Public Health Can Affect LGBT Rights, by Omar Harfouch –
Surrogacy
Books, Publications and Resources
- Queer Wars, by Dennis Altman and Jonathan Symons
- New report maps West African LGBTQ organizing
- Equal Rights Review Vol 16 – issue on intersectionality
- Guttmacher Institute report “Contraceptive Failure Rates in the Developing World: An Analysis of Demographic and Health Survey Data in 43 Countries”
- Institute of Development Studies (IDS) new bulletin: Connecting Perspectives on Women’s Empowerment
- Humans Rights Watch report “‘Do You See How Much I’m Suffering Here?’: Abuse against Transgender Women in US Immigration Detention”
- Williams Institute report “Estimates of Transgender Populations in States with Legislation Impacting Transgender People”
- EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency’s report “Professionally speaking: challenges to achieving equality for LGBT people’”
Check it out
- Reality Check new project and website Rewire
Sexuality and Art
Call me Heenam – Shahria Sharmin’s portrait series on Bangladeshi hijras—who identify as either “third gender” or transgender. The photos are part of an Open Society project.