Center Briefs Committee against Torture on Reproductive Rights Abuses

In May, the Center briefed the UN Committee against Torture, alongside the Open Society Foundations, Human Rights Watch and the Mental Disability Advocacy Center. The briefing identified specific areas in which the Convention against Torture is commonly violated in healthcare settings. The Center focused on abuses occurring when women seek reproductive health care, and urged the Committee to demand greater accountability for them and strongly support a woman’s right to reproductive autonomy and health.

The Center has long fought to bring attention to the grave human rights violations that occur in reproductive healthcare settings. In Kenya, we have documented the physical and verbal abuse suffered by women when they go to hospitals to give birth or receive post-abortion care. In Chile, we have drawn international attention to the plight of women living with HIV who have been forcibly sterilized.

The May event was a follow-up to the first-ever thematic briefing on reproductive rights before the Committee against Torture, held in May 2010.