17-year-old K.L. took on the country Peru for enabling officials to force her to carry a fatally-impaired fetus to term. When our client K.L. was seventeen years old, she found out that she was pregnant with an anencephalic fetus. Even though abortion is legal in Peru for therapeutic reasons, K.L. was illegally denied access to […]
Communication No. 4/2004Submitted by: Ms. A. S. (represented by the European Roma Rights Center and the Legal Defence Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities)Alleged victim: The authorState party: HungaryDate of communication: 12 February 2004 (initial submission) On 14 August 2006, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women adopted the annexed text as the […]
UNITED NATIONS COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMENSUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION RE:A.S. V. HUNGARYCOMMUNICATION NO: 4/2004This memorandum offers comments in the case of A.S. v. Hungary. It is submitted by the Center for Reproductive Rights, an international non-governmental organization that uses the law to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental right that […]
The A.S. v. Hungary complaint was filed under the Optional Protocol to CEDAW on behalf of a Hungarian woman of Roma origin who was coercively sterilized in a public hospital. The complaint was filed jointly by the Budapest-based Legal Defense Bureau for National and Ethnic Minorities (NEKI) and the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), and […]
International human rights law protects the rights of women to have access to voluntary sterilization services free of coercion, discrimination, and violence. In April 2004, the Center prepared a legal memorandum on the illegality of coercive sterilization under international human rights law, and an analysis of possible remedial measures to address such abuses using comparative […]
Concluding Observations: Brazil_CEDAW_2007_English https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/XSL_CO.Brazil2007.pdf
A key United Nations human rights body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), is urging Ecuador to curb sexual violence against girls in schools. The issue was highlighted by a shadow letter from the Center. According to local organizations, between 22% and 63% of Ecuadorian girls report sexual abuse in […]
The Center brought this case on behalf of ten women targeted by a “Search and Arrest” policy initiated in 1989 by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and local law enforcement officials. Under the policy, MUSC medical personnel secretly searched a targeted group of pregnant women for evidence of cocaine use so that police […]
European Court of Human Rights Sets Standards for the Rights of Adolescents to Reproductive Health Services (Updated 04.01.21) The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland violated an adolescent’s human rights when her access to a legal abortion after being sexually assaulted was repeatedly obstructed. The Court, for the first, time addressed the special vulnerability of adolescents in need of abortion care and confirmed young people’s […]
Slovakia must take urgent action to prevent Roma women from being sterilized without prior and informed consent. This was a key concluding observation from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which reviewed Slovakia on July 2. The Committee called on the government of Slovakia to better monitor public and private […]