International Women’s Day 2009

March 8 marks the annual commemoration of International Women’s Day.  In this year’s celebrations, which focus on ending violence against women and girls, the Center for Reproductive Rights is calling upon all governments to take concrete steps to end the abuses that women face when accessing healthcare services. Violence prevents women and girls from enjoying their human rights, including their reproductive rights. The Center has been documenting and litigating cases of violence against women and girls in healthcare settings—violence that threatens women’s rights to health, physical integrity, and life.  Among these cases is one focused on the coerced sterilization of a woman of Roma origin in Hungary and another relating to the coerced sterilization of an HIV positive woman in Chile. The Cairo Program of Action adopted by countries all around the world in 1994 clearly states that reproductive rights include the right of all women to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence as expressed in human rights documents.  Furthermore, countries pledged to take measures to eliminate all forms of exploitation, abuse, harassment and violence against women, adolescents and girls.  On this International Women’s Day, which also marks the 15th anniversary of the Cairo Program of Action, the Center wants to strengthen and enforce national laws and policies aimed at ending violence against women.