#30Years30Stories
Thirty years ago, the United Nations adopted the historic Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, a progressive and visionary agenda for advancing women’s rights around the world. The 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), March 10–21 at UN Headquarters in New York, will focus on the significant progress made since 1995 in improving the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and girls—as well as the numerous challenges that lie ahead.
To mark this important milestone, the Center for Reproductive Rights is sharing 30 Years, 30 Stories, to highlight some of the notable achievements and trends that have improved maternal health care, abortion access, gender equality, and international human rights in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Africa
Advancing maternal health in Kenya. All women in Kenya are now guaranteed respectful, quality maternal health care due to a decision in the Center’s case defending Josephine Majani—a pregnant woman who was physically and verbally abused by hospital staff and left to deliver her baby on a concrete floor. Read more here.
Safeguarding access to safe and legal abortion for survivors of sexual violence in Kenya. Survivors of sexual assault in Kenya have increased protections for access to abortion following a groundbreaking decision in the Center’s case concerning JMM, a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted and died after complications from an unsafe abortion. Read more here.
Rwanda expands access to abortion services. In a significant victory for women and girls, the Rwanda Health Services Bill, approved in November 2024, allows adolescents starting at 15 to access health care without parental consent and permits health centers to provide abortions. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) had made recommendations to Rwanda after the Center and partners submitted a supplementary report on Rwanda’s SRHR. Read more here.
In Tanzania, pregnant girls will be able to continue their educations since they will no longer be barred from school. The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) ruled in 2022 that Tanzania’s practice of mandatory pregnancy testing and permanent expulsion of pregnant learners from public schools violated adolescent girls’ human rights. This landmark decision came in a case brought by the Center and the Legal and Human Rights Centre of Tanzania in 2019 to challenge the policies that had denied education to thousands of girls. Read more here.
Kenyan high court affirms abortion as a constitutional right and directs Parliament to enact reforms. In a landmark decision issued in 2022, the High Court of Kenya in Malindi strongly affirmed that abortion care is a fundamental right under the constitution of Kenya. The case, brought by the Center and Reproductive Health Network Kenya, challenged the unjust arrest and prosecution of both a minor seeking care and her healthcare provider. Read more here.
Advancing abortion protections in Malawi. In 2021, the Malawi High Court reaffirmed protections for legal abortion in a ruling that reiterated that the preservation of a woman’s life includes mental and physical health. The Center provided technical and financial support to enable the filing of this case. Read more here.
Asia
Increasing access to obstetric fistula care in Pakistan. In a landmark ruling, the Sindh High Court in Pakistan directed the government to implement measures to provide access to obstetric fistula care in the province of Sindh, including the creation of fistula repair centers and the recruitment of qualified gynecologists to government hospitals. The ruling was in response to a petition filed in 2015 by the Center’s Advocacy Adviser for Asia, demanding that the government take measures to prevent and treat obstetric fistula. Read more here.
Nepal adopts groundbreaking law on abortion. Women in Nepal now have a constitutional right to safe abortion after Nepal adopted one of most progressive, rights-based laws governing reproductive and sexual rights and health following decades of advocacy by the Center and partners. The Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights (SMRHR) Act 2018 followed robust civil society advocacy and strategic litigation before the Nepal Supreme Court. Read more here.
Access to abortion expanded in India. People in India have expanded access to abortion after India made changes to its 50-year-old Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971. The 2021 reforms increased gestational limits on abortion and expanded grounds. While the amendment failed to adopt a rights-based approach to regulating abortion, these changes are crucial to increasing access for millions of Indians. The Center is a member of a national coalition advocating for abortion rights in India. Read more here.
Decriminalization of consensual adolescent sexual activity in the Philippines. In an important step recognizing the sexual autonomy of adolescents, the Philippines amended its penal code in 2022 to decriminalize adolescent sexual activity that is consensual, non-exploitative, and non-abusive. The Center has been working in the Philippines and other countries for years to ensure that laws criminalizing age-mate and consensual sexual activity are repealed. Read more here.
Addressing surrogacy in Cambodia. For the first-time, the CEDAW expressed concern that Cambodian women who acted as surrogates were subject to criminal proceedings. Prior to this issuance, the Center and partners highlighted the significant human rights implications of the criminalization of commercial surrogacy in Cambodia in a joint NGO submission to the committee. Read more here.
CEDAW recommends Turkmenistan liberalize its abortion law. The CEDAW recommended that Turkmenistan liberalize its abortion laws and policies following advocacy efforts by the Center and its regional partners. Turkmenistan currently has the world’s lowest gestational limit for abortion on request: five weeks. Read more here.
Europe
Ireland legalizes abortion. Many women in Ireland can access safe, legal abortion care following a groundbreaking referendum result in 2019 that repealed the country’s constitutional prohibition on abortion and paved the way for long-overdue legislative reform. These legal reforms also enabled Ireland’s compliance with the UN Human Rights Committee rulings in the Center’s cases, Mellet v. Ireland and Whelan v. Ireland. Read more here.
Countries across Europe expand access to abortion. In the past decade, 22 countries across Europe have strengthened protections, making safe and legal abortion more accessible. Legal reforms and policy changes have removed barriers to reproductive care, reflecting a growing commitment to ensuring that individuals can access essential healthcare without legal or political obstacles. Read more here.
EU adopts law guaranteeing healthcare for sexual violence survivors. The EU Directive on violence against women and domestic violence requires Member States to guarantee access to sexual and reproductive healthcare for survivors of sexual violence, including emergency contraception, post-exposure prophylaxis and abortion care. Read more here.
Andorra acquits human rights defender. In 2024, human rights defender Vanessa Mendoza Cortés, president of the women’s rights organization Stop Violence, was acquitted of charges related to her advocacy for women’s reproductive rights in Andorra. Her acquittal affirmed the rights of women human rights defenders who are still advocating for the repeal of Andorra’s total abortion ban, which continues to violate women’s human rights. Read more here.
EU passes resolution calling for removal of barriers to SRHR. In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging EU Member States to remove barriers to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including abortion, contraception, quality maternal health care, assisted reproductive technologies and comprehensive sexuality education. Read more here.
UN finds that Poland’s abortion law violates human rights. In 2024, a landmark UN report, issued after a three-year inquiry, condemned Poland’s restrictive abortion law, highlighting its devastating impact on women’s health and rights. It called for urgent reform to legalize and fully decriminalize abortion. The investigation followed the submission of evidence by the Center and Polish civil society groups. Read more here.
France becomes first country to guarantee constitutional right to abortion. As countries across Europe improved protections for abortion access, France took a groundbreaking step in 2024 by becoming the first country in the world to explicitly enshrine protection for abortion access in its constitution. French lawmakers approved the amendment by a huge majority, making abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in the constitution. Read more here.
Latin America and the Caribbean
The Green Wave rises in Latin America. Twenty-eight million Latin American women of reproductive age now live in countries that offer greater legal guarantees for their reproductive rights—a result of the Green Wave, a powerful movement fighting for the decriminalization of abortion, advocating for access, and mobilizing millions of women across Latin America. The Center has been part of this fight, particularly in Colombia, where it was one of the five organizations that founded the Causa Justa movement. Read more here.
Girls Not Mothers: Landmark cases lead to new global standards for abortion access and protections for survivors of sexual abuse. In January 2025, the United Nations Human Rights Committee issued three landmark decisions holding the States of Ecuador and Nicaragua responsible for the human rights violations of three girls—survivors of rape—who were forced into motherhood. These rulings set a new global standard for reproductive rights extending to 170+ countries. The three rulings are the culmination of an international litigation strategy launched by the “Niñas, No Madres” (“Girls, Not Mothers”) Movement, a coalition of which the Center is a part. Read more here.
Reproductive violence acknowledged as a weapon of war against women and girls. For the first time in the history of truth commissions, reproductive violence has been acknowledged. In 2022, the Colombian Truth Commission’s Final Report recognized that reproductive violence—including forced abortions, pregnancies, and sterilizations—was a practice used by all armed actors in Colombia’s conflict to exert control and power over women and girls. The Center contributed two reports to the Colombian Truth Commission to help understand how the war impacted women and girls. Read more here.
Obstetric violence recognized as a threat to women’s rights that States must eradicate. A 2023 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights set new standards to protect women and other pregnant people—during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum—from obstetric violence across Latin America and the Caribbean. The ruling came in a case involving a pregnant Argentinian woman whose death resulted from inadequate medical treatment and recognizes obstetric violence as a form of gender-based violence. The Center backed and advanced the case by submitting the only amicus brief. Read more here.
Protecting comprehensive sexual education as a human right. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights established legally binding standards to prevent sexual violence and harassment in schools in the Americas. The ruling, issued in 2020, stemmed from Paola Guzmán Albarracin v. Ecuador, a case brought by the Center and CEPAM-Guayaquil on behalf of the family of an Ecuadorian girl who was sexually abused by her school’s vice principal. This landmark case, the first to address sexual violence in schools, outlines standards that all States must implement. Read more here.
Global
Abortion rights are advancing across the globe. More than 60 countries have liberalized their abortion laws, while only four countries have removed legal grounds for abortion in the past 30 years. As a result of this wave of liberalization, around 815 million more women of reproductive age are living in countries with expanded grounds for legal abortion. The Center’s map of the world’s abortion laws is the definitive record of the legal status of abortion globally and is updated in real time to show how countries and territories are protecting—or violating—individuals’ abortion rights. Read more.
UN CERD Committee acknowledges the link between racial discrimination and denial of the right to health, including sexual and reproductive health. The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s (CERD) General Recommendation no. 37 recognizes, among other things, that the criminalization of abortion in all circumstances constitutes an indirect form of intersecting racial and gender-based discrimination. Read more here.
UN treaty monitoring bodies advance and strengthen SRHR standards. On Human Rights Day, the Center released Breaking Ground, a report detailing legal developments between 2020-2024 from UN treaty monitoring bodies on what States must do to comply with their obligations under international human rights law on respecting, protecting and fulfilling SRHR for all women and girls. Read more here.
The WHO affirms abortion access as essential to health and human rights, calling for the removal of legal barriers to access. The World Health Organization’s Abortion Care Guideline recognized abortion as an essential health service central to the human rights to quality sexual and reproductive health services. Read more here.
The UN sets groundbreaking standards on SRHR under international human rights law. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ General Comment no. 22 recognized SRHR as essential for the right to non-discrimination and the right of all persons to be fully respected for their sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status. Read more here.
