“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” That’s the first sentence of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations 63 years ago on December 10. And yet here we are, all these decades later, still fighting tooth and nail to ensure that those […]
On November 8, 2011 the European Court of Human Rights issued a judgment in V.C. v. Slovakia, a case of a Romani woman who was sterilized without informed consent. The court found Slovakia in violation of the woman’s right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment, and right to respect for private and family […]
A Girl Who Changed the World, A Victory for Women Everywhere In 2009, a girl from Peru named L.C. demanded justice. Two years earlier, she needed an abortion—had a legal right to abortion—and was denied, suffering irrevocable harm. L.C. wanted to hold an entire government accountable, her doctors responsible, for failing her just when she […]
In a groundbreaking decision issued in L.C. v. Peru—a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partner organization in Peru PROMSEX—the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) ruled that Peru must amend its law to allow women to obtain an abortion in cases of rape and sexual assault, establish a […]
In August 2011, the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners filed an amicus brief to the European Court of Human Rights in support of Joëlle Gauer and Others —five women with mental disabilities in France who were forcibly sterilized—arguing that forced sterilization constitutes a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Download the […]
In August 2011, the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners filed an amicus brief to the European Court of Human Rights in support of Joëlle Gauer and Others —five women with mental disabilities in France who were forcibly sterilized—arguing that forced sterilization constitutes a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Case filed: […]
By Jodi Jacobson “In 2002, Alyne da Silva Pimentel, a 28-year-old Afro-Brazilian woman, died after being denied basic medical care to address complications in her pregnancy. Her death might be like any one of the other hundreds of thousands of women who die of complications of pregnancy or unsafe abortion each year worldwide, but for […]
https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/HP_alyne_8.16.11-copy.jpg Alyne da Silva Pimentel would have been 37 years old today if Brazil’s government had honored its responsibility to protect her fundamental human rights. Instead, because she was poor and Afro-Brazilian, she died in 2002 after being denied basic medical care to address complications in her pregnancy. She was only 28 years old. And […]
In the first maternal death case to be decided by an international human rights body, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) establishes that governments have a human rights obligation to guarantee that all women in their countries—regardless of income or racial background—have access to timely, non-discriminatory, and appropriate maternal […]
https://reproductiverights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/hp_poland-1.jpg For the first time in its history, the European Court of Human Rights specifically found that an abortion-related violation amounted to inhumane and degrading treatment. The Center and its partners filed the case R.R. v. Poland in 2004, and the Court handed down its landmark decision on May 26, 2011. It found Poland in violation […]