Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • The Center’s Impact
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Corporate Engagement
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • Cases Archive
    • 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
    • Global Advocacy
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stories
    • Events
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Press Releases
    • Statements
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • U.S. Abortion Rights: Resources
    • Maps
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
    • Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Become a Monthly Donor
    • Make a Donor Advised Fund Gift
    • Leave a Legacy Gift
    • Donate Gifts of Stock
    • Give a Gift in Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Employee Matching Gifts
    • Mail a Check
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

United Nations Committee Examines U.S. Record On Torture

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
    • The Center’s Impact
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Corporate Engagement
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • Cases Archive
    • 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
    • Global Advocacy
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stories
    • Events
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Press Releases
    • Statements
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • U.S. Abortion Rights: Resources
    • Maps
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
    • Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Become a Monthly Donor
    • Make a Donor Advised Fund Gift
    • Leave a Legacy Gift
    • Donate Gifts of Stock
    • Give a Gift in Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Employee Matching Gifts
    • Mail a Check
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Maternal Health, Maternal Mortality

Regions:

Accountability Bodies, United Nations

Work:

At the United Nations, Reporting on Rights

Type:

News, Press Releases

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

11.12.2014

At the United Nations Maternal Health Accountability Bodies News

United Nations Committee Examines U.S. Record On Torture

Justin Goldberg

Share

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
United Nations Committee Examines U.S. Record On Torture
Center for Reproductive Rights Raises Violations of Reproductive Rights for Immigrant Women and Women of Color

(PRESS RELEASE) The United Nations Committee against Torture meets in Geneva this week to review the United States’ record on torture and human rights violations. The Center for Reproductive Rights is among 70 US civil society groups attending the review to raise critical issues, ranging from allegations of torture at Guantánamo Bay to conditions of immigration detention facilities.



Today the UN committee asked a high-level U.S. delegation questions regarding lack of sexual and reproductive health services for immigrant women in detention facilities and the shackling of pregnant women in custody. Prior to the review the Center submitted a joint letter with The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and Women Enabled International to the UN Committee detailing how discrimination against immigrants, poor and rural women, and women and girls living with disabilities seeking reproductive health services  subjects them to torture or ill-treatment. 



Discriminatory state and federal policies are resulting in the denial of essential reproductive health care and other ill treatment of women. In Texas, for example, reproductive health funding was slashed by two-thirds in 2011, cutting off critical preventive services for millions of low-income women. In 2013 House Bill 2 (HB2) passed, leading to the closure of approximately half Texas’s safe, legal abortion clinics. These efforts together have had a particularly devastating impact on low-income Latinas and immigrant women living in the Rio Grande Valley and other medically underserved areas of the state.  



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



“All women deserve access to safe, legal, high-quality health care, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status, or where they live.



“But for countless women in Texas and across the U.S., access has been choked off by politically motivated legislation that has shut down clinics and left millions of women to travel hundreds of miles just to seek the care they need.



“The Committee against Torture must hold the U.S. government accountable for allowing this reproductive health crisis to unfold on its watch.” 



UN human rights bodies have historically been critical of the United States for the discrimination immigrants experience when seeking affordable health care. In August, the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern about policies barring immigrants from public health insurance and urged the U.S. to improve access to affordable coverage for all immigrants, especially women in need of reproductive health care. These recommendations echo ones made by the United Nations Human Rights Committee this past March urging the U.S. to amend laws that discriminate against immigrants in health coverage and access to reproductive health care.



In addition to the denial of essential reproductive health care for Texas Latinas, the Center for Reproductive Rights describes in the joint letter to the Committee against Torture abuses that frequently occur in immigration detention facilities, including shackling of pregnant women and denial of contraception and prenatal care, due to lack of proper oversight and binding policies.  



“No woman in the U.S. should be denied essential reproductive health care and endure ill-treatment because of her gender, ethnicity, immigration status, or disability,” said Katrina Anderson, Senior Human Rights Counsel at the Center.  “The U.S. must be held accountable to fulfill all women’s human rights and take the concrete steps necessary to combat the many forms of discrimination that leave far too many women at risk of torture and cruel treatment.”



The Center has led the effort to hold states and the U.S. government accountable for failures to ensure reproductive rights for immigrants. In 2013, the Center and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health released Nuestra Voz, Nuestra Salud, Nuestro Texas: The Fight for Women’s Reproductive Health in the Rio Grande Valley, a report documenting the devastating human toll on Latinas and their families in the Rio Grande Valley in the wake of Texas’s 2011 policy decisions to slash state funding for reproductive health services. 



 



 

Related Posts

Letter to U.N. Committee Against Torture on the Philippines

Maternal Health, Access to Quality Care,Accountability Bodies, United Nations,At the United Nations

Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

Abortion, Adolescent SRHR, Maternal Health,Accountability Bodies, United Nations,At the United Nations, Reporting on Rights

CRR Submission for Human Rights Committee’s General Comment on the Right to Life

The Center for Reproductive Rights prepared this submission to the Human Rights Committee in advance of its drafting a revised...

Abortion, Maternal Health, Access to Quality Care, Maternal Mortality,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
  • Gift Acceptance Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2024)

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

Better Business Bureau Charity Watch Top Rated 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