United Nations Calls on Governments to Promote Safe Pregnancy and Child Birth
United Nations Calls on Governments to Promote Safe Pregnancy and Child Birth
U.N. Human Rights Council Passes 5th Resolution to Address Preventable Maternal Deaths
(PRESS RELEASE) The United Nations Human Right Council unanimously passed its fifth resolution on preventable maternal deaths, urging all U.N. member states to take action at all levels to address the causes of maternal mortality with a human rights-based approach. However, the resolution failed to acknowledge that such an approach must also ensure women’s sexual and reproductive rights.
The resolution calls for U.N. member states to address how discrimination against women has contributed to maternal mortality and to implement policies that address preventable maternal deaths and health complications, in accordance with the 2012 human rights guidelines from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
But critical paragraphs in the resolution—which was introduced and spearheaded by the governments of Burkina Faso, Colombia, and New Zealand—urging states to meet their obligations to ensure the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls were later removed to achieve consensus following strong opposition from a few states.
Said Rebecca Brown, director of Global Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights:
“Women should never feel as though they’re putting their health and lives at risk when they become pregnant, but the truth is maternal deaths still claim the lives of 800 women and girls every day.
“We commend the governments of Burkina Faso, Colombia, and New Zealand for their commitment alongside the United Nations Human Rights Council to hold member states accountable for the preventable maternal deaths in their countries.
“The only way governments can truly ensure the women in their countries stay healthy and safe during and after pregnancy is to ensure every woman has access to quality maternal care and their sexual and reproductive rights are recognized in law and policy.”
While there has been a 45 percent decline in maternal deaths worldwide since 1990, nearly 300,000 women died from pregnancy related complications last year—underscoring the need for the U.N Human Rights Council’s ongoing commitment to preventing and addressing maternal mortality and morbidity, and resolutions like the one passed today. Furthermore, marginalized women continue to experience significantly higher levels of maternal mortality, including in developed countries such as the United States and Australia.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has brought cases to both international human rights bodies, as well as national courts, on behalf of women who were denied quality maternal health care. Earlier this year the Brazilian government provided monetary reparations as part of a 2011 ruling from the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that held Brazil responsible for the death of an Afro-Brazilian woman. And in Kenya, the Center has filed two cases of the mistreatment and abuse of pregnant women in maternity hospitals.
Recently the Center released From Risk to Rights: Realizing States’ Obligations to Prevent and Address Maternal Mortality that examines how states’ failure to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity became recognized as a fundamental human rights violation. It describes the causes of maternal mortality and morbidity and summarizes the relevant human rights standards, political declarations and development commitments on this issue.
