This oral statement was delivered in-person at the 58th Session of the Human Rights Council Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls. Click here to watch the statement.
Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls
Thank you, Mr. Vice President
I am making this statement on behalf of the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women, ARROW.
Unpaid and underpaid care and support work remains a major source of gendered inequality in our region. Women and girls disproportionately shoulder care-giving responsibilities, including productive and reproductive care burden, often without recognition or support. A care-responsive, rights-based approach to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) must go hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce and redistribute unpaid care work, especially in post-pandemic recovery and social protection systems.
We are also deeply alarmed by the accelerating global backlash against SRHR, including rollbacks on hard-won rights, attacks on comprehensive sexuality education, restrictions on abortion and contraception, and increasing criminalization of SRH services.
We echo the Working Group’s call for transformative change and urge the Member states to:
- Ensure the full realization and access of SRHR for women and girls in all their diversity, including access to safe abortion, comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), and quality SRH services, free from discrimination, coercion and violence within Universal Health Coverage packages.
- Remove all legal and policy barriers., and
- Integrate SRHR within care and support systems, ensuring public investment in SRH—such as contraception, maternal health, gender-affirming care, and services for survivors of gender-based violence—as core components of gender-responsive care economies.
Thank You!
