This report is the result of a five-month consultation with activists, CSOs, researchers and survivors of FGM/C from across the Asia region. Activists and stakeholders have called for greater political will to end FGM/C, including legislation and its implementation and enforcement, as well as broad awareness raising, direct work with affected communities, and work to […]

While the absolute number of persons aged 65 or over globally in 2019, is projected at 703 million, Central and Southern Asia contributed to 119 million persons (17%), and Eastern and Southern Asia contributed to 260.6 million persons (37%). These demographic shifts have implications related to health, health care systems, health workforce, health care technologies, […]

Sexuality is one of the most central and defining aspects of being human. The WHO working definition of sexual rights states that all persons should have the right to the highest standard of health in relation to sexuality which includes access to SRH services; to seek, receive and impart information in relation to sexuality; sexuality […]

There is an estimated 37.9 million (32.7 million – 44.0 million) people living with HIV globally in 2018. Close to 18% of these persons, or 5.9 million (5.1 million – 7.1 million) live in the Asia and the Pacific region, making the region home to the second largest HIV burden after Africa. Mirroring the global […]

The ICPD PoA acknowledges that adolescents have sexual and reproductive health (SHR) needs that must be addressed. It urges the governments to address adolescent SRH issues, including unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, through the promotion of responsible and healthy reproductive and sexual behaviour, including voluntary abstinence, and the provision of […]

This thematic brief seeks to anchor the morbidity and mortality due to reproductive cancers as a problem of social inequity and of unfulfilled rights of women in Asia and the Pacific. It reports on the burden of reproductive cancers in this region, and the lack of population-based registries and vital registration systems that precludes the […]

Maternal mortality continues to remain unacceptably high, in many countries in the world, including in the Asia Pacific region, and every day in 2017, approximately 810 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. While progress has been made with a 38% reduction in the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) since 2000, with […]

2012 marked the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit, and during the preparations that led up to it, saw a resurgence of the ‘population control’ discourse, and a strong push towards increased access to contraception. Although the demographic transition has been considered successful in the Asia-Pacific region, generally, most of the reduction in numbers, […]

Safe abortion is a necessary component of reproductive health services, though some parties continue to contest the issue. In the ICPD, Paragraph 8.25 speaks of the need to reduce the recourse to abortion through contraception; pre-and-post abortion counselling; where abortion is not against the law, such abortion should be safe; and that at the very […]

2018 was a tumultuous year to say the very least with tensions and struggles between the left and the right in both the US and the UK. But 2018 also was the year when citizens made powerful stands against unfettered power.