Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

United Nations Calls on Perú to Expand Access to Legal Abortion

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Abortion, Legal Protections

Regions:

Accountability Bodies, United Nations

Work:

At the United Nations, Reporting on Rights

Type:

News, Press Releases

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

07.25.2014

At the United Nations Abortion Accountability Bodies News

United Nations Calls on Perú to Expand Access to Legal Abortion

Justin Goldberg

Share this Story

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
United Nations Calls on Perú to Expand Access to Legal Abortion
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) Cites Denial of Legal Abortion Services As Human Rights Violations

(PRESS RELEASE) The United Nations (U.N.) has called for the Peruvian government to liberalize its current abortion law and to address human rights violations, including the denial of legal abortion services and gender-based discrimination faced by women when they seek legal recourse.



In recommendations released this week by the U.N. CEDAW Committee, committee members recognized Perú’s long history of denying women access to legal abortion and failure  to provide comprehensive individual and general reparations in the cases of L.C. and K.L. In these cases, adolescent women were denied legal, therapeutic abortions. The CEDAW Committee also called on Perú to permit legal abortion in cases of rape, incest, and severe fetal impairments. Currently, abortion in Perú is legal only when the health or life of a woman is at risk.



Last month, Perú adopted a national protocol for safe abortion services to provide clarity for physicians and patients on legal therapeutic abortion in the country, ninety years after therapeutic abortion was decriminalized. State officials announced the policy change leading up to Perú’s evaluation at CEDAW Committee’s 58th session in Geneva, Switzerland. The CEDAW Committee recommended that Perú disseminate the abortion guidelines included in the protocol to all health staff.



Said Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights:



“Once again, the United Nations has underscored the vital principle that women’s reproductive rights are fundamental human rights, which include the right to safe and legal abortion care.



“The experiences of Peruvian women denied the health care that is their fundamental right are inexcusable and must not be repeated in other women’s lives.



“While Perú has taken some recent steps toward expanding the rights of women, it’s nowhere near enough.  Now is the time for the Peruvian government to build on this progress and bring forth legislation that will truly expand women’s access to critical reproductive health care.”



In its observations, the CEDAW Committee expressed concerns about the significant barriers low-income and marginalized women face seeking legal recourse in national, regional and international courts—highlighting L.C. and K.L.’s cases. It called on the State to train police, judges and lawyers on its human rights obligations, specifically women’s human rights and the right to gender equality.



“Women in Perú have been denied access to safe, legal, and often life-saving abortion services for far too long,” said Mónica Arango, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “The United Nations has made it abundantly clear that Perú must work quickly to implement its new therapeutic abortion guidelines and immediately provide comprehensive reparations to L.C., K.L., and their families for the suffering caused by their government’s failure to provide essential medical care.”



According to the CEDAW Committee, Perú must also ensure the availability of abortion services and quality post-abortion care. The CEDAW Committee also recommended that Perú ensure access to family planning services, in particular in rural areas, and adopt all the necessary measures to carry out the free distribution of emergency contraceptives within the public health system, particularly to survivors of sexual abuse.



The Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Perú-based PROMSEX submitted a report to the CEDAW Committee, addressing the human rights concerns stemming from Perú’s restrictive abortion law, lack of access to emergency contraception within the public health system, and limited sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents.



“Women’s health advocates have systematically denounced how the reproductive rights of women and girls in Perú have been trampled for too long,” said Rossina Guerrero, Director of Political Advocacy at PROMSEX. “Now with the global spotlight on human rights violations in Perú, the government must work diligently to put the therapeutic abortion guidelines into action so that safe abortion services are a reality for Peruvian women.”



Currently abortion in Perú is legal only when the health or life of a woman is at risk, and not in cases of rape. The devastating impact of criminalizing abortion in cases of rape is particularly far-reaching in Perú, which has the highest rate of reported rape in South America. Peruvian girls and adolescents account for an overwhelming proportion (78 percent) of rape cases and, adding insult to injury, public health services are prohibited from distributing emergency contraception.



A study by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute reinforced the fact that restrictive abortion laws are not associated with lower rates of abortion. According to the study, the 2008 abortion rate in Latin America—a region where abortion is highly restricted in almost all countries—was 32 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, while in Western Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds, the rate is just 12 per 1,000.


Related Posts

Decision: L.C. v. Peru

In a groundbreaking decision issued in L.C. v. Peru—a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partner organization...

Abortion, Legal Restrictions,Latin America & Caribbean, Peru, Accountability Bodies, United Nations,In the Courts, Engaging Policymakers, Around the World, Reporting on Rights

Addressing Medical Professionals’ Refusals to Provide Abortion Care on Grounds of Conscience or Religion

In many European countries where abortion is legal, domestic laws and regulations allow medical professionals to refuse to provide abortion...

Abortion, Other Barriers,Europe, Accountability Bodies, European Human Rights System,Reporting on Rights
Addressing Medical Professionals’ Refusals to Provide Abortion Care on Grounds of Conscience or Religion

Concluding observations on the combined eighth and ninth periodic reports of El Salvador

Download the document here.  

Abortion,United States, Accountability Bodies, United Nations,At the United Nations

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2022)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up