In the third UPR Cycle, Malaysia received several recommendations on gender equality, sexual and reproductive health, access to comprehensive sexuality education and protection of women and girls from violence. Malaysia is urged to accede to relevant Optional Protocols and withdraw reservations to the Convention which hinder the rights of women and girls in Malaysia. The […]

This monitoring report provides findings of a baseline study in Malaysia to contribute to the implementation of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) concluding observations in Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Terengganu. Guided by the recommendations, the baseline report focuses on four […]

Freedom of speech and expression is a fundamental human right. Captured within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under Article 19, it is defined as, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without judgements, interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through […]

In 2019, ARROW consolidated the work that, historically, made us strong and branched out to new initiatives to sharpen our advocacy work. 2019 was also the 25th anniversary of Cairo, and ARROW worked with partners to hold governments accountable to their Cairo commitments across 13 different countries in the Asia-Pacific region through evidence and advocacy. […]

There are some 3.9 million girls aged 15 to 19 years who undergo unsafe abortions every year. Young women face unique vulnerabilities when accessing healthcare and safe abortion services even in contexts where abortion is legal because of their age and gender. The obstacles that many young women face in obtaining safe and legal abortions […]

This brief is part of ARROW’s mission towards monitoring the progress of government commitments towards Agenda 2030 in relation to women’s health and wellbeing, in particular around universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. It draws on secondary data to provide a comparison and measure progress pertaining to women’s health across 19 countries […]

This regional brief sheds light on the progress made by countries in the Asia-Pacific region on a set of key transformative gender equality targets and indicators linked to the SDG 5, and identifies the challenges in achieving our commitments including key data gaps that need urgent attention to realise gender equality for women and girls […]

This paper focuses on education and information sharing about medical abortion with pills which involves use of a drug or combination of drugs to terminate pregnancy. Self-Managed Abortion (SMA) occurs when a person chooses to perform their own abortion outside a medical setting. The many reasons for opting for self-managed abortion could be because of […]

As part of the on-going consultations on the SDGs in Asia and the Pacific Region, on 27 March 2020, The Asia Pacific Resource and Research Centre for women, YPEER and Youth Lead conducted an online survey which included regional and national young representatives and respondents from the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) 2020 […]

Sexual and gender minorities are already experiencing various levels of oppression and discrimination and these are further exacerbated during the CoVid-19 pandemic. This document provides some of the salient points from the dialogue organised by Youth Voices Count (YVC), the United Nations Major Group on Children and Youth (UN MGCY), Asian Youth Peace Network (AYPN), […]