UPR 43 Highlights: Sexual Rights-Related Recommendations

Published on June 08, 2023
Analysis
UN Mechanism

Below is our list of sexual rights-related highlights from each UPR 43 review. This list presents recommendations made related to sexual rights, including State responses to date.

In collaboration with our partners, the SRI submitted reports for Romania and Botswana.

 

Bahamas

Deferred:

  • Strengthen efforts to provide and improve access of healthcare for all, including access to sexual and reproductive health services and information. (Fiji)
  • Decriminalize the voluntary termination of pregnancy. (Mexico)
  • Improve education standards at all levels and integrate human rights education in particular on sexual and reproductive rights and health, and equal parental responsibility for the care of boys and girls. (Costa Rica)
  • Hasten the process of draft legislation to amend the Sexual Offenses Act that will include the criminalization of marital rape. (Indonesia)

 

Barbados

Deferred:

  • Introduce comprehensive sexuality and reproductive health education in the mandatory school curriculum. (Portugal)
  • Strengthen measures to ensure access to sexual and reproductive health services for all segments of the population, without restriction on the basis of age, marital status or third-party authorization requirements. (Colombia)
  • Continue governmental and health system efforts, especially in relation to maternal mortality, with emphasis on risk prevention in the prenatal stage. (Cuba)

 

Botswana

Deferred:

  • Develop and promote community-owned awareness programmes to eradicate gender stereotypes, harmful myths and traditional practices around sexual violence. (Zimbabwe)
  • Bolster efforts to ensure the enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health rights of adolescents, particularly on access to contraceptives. (Lesotho)
  • Decriminalise abortion and ensure safe abortion up to 28 weeks throughout the country. (Iceland)
  • Implement specific legislation to protect victims of violence committed against persons on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in line with the Resolution 275 of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights as stipulated by the Judge in Botswana. (The Netherlands)

 

Burundi

  • Ensure that young people and adolescents have free and unhindered access to accurate information on sexual and reproductive health. (Estonia)
  • Take steps to promote the funding of grassroot organizations that can increase women’s participation in social and economic, political and public life. (Honduras)
  • Adopt the necessary measures to confront violence against women and girls, and guarantee all their rights and sexual and reproductive health. (Costa Rica)
  • Decriminalize abortion, and legalize it in cases of rape, incest and fetal impairment. (Iceland)

 

France

Deferred:

  • Implement the Nairobi Summit commitment on ICPD 25 to incorporate sexual and reproductive health services into universal health coverage. (Panama)
  • Continue efforts to combat violence against women, including femicides, domestic violence, as well as patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotypes. (Bolivia)
  • Review the relevant laws concerned with rape and attempted rape to incorporate the concept of non-consent. (South Africa)
  • Consider introducing legislation that bans medically unnecessary and irreversible surgery and other treatments that are routinely performed on intersex children. (Malta)
  • Improve the conditions of access to basic social services for migrants and refugees and put in place additional protection mechanisms for women, girls and unaccompanied minors. (Djibouti)

 

Israel

Deferred:

  • Adopt legislative measures in order to create a favourable environment for Israeli women and Palestinian human rights defenders to carry out their activities freely. (Honduras)
  • Take measures to improve the labour rights of Bedouin, Arab and ultra-Orthodox Jewish women and the black Jewish population, in particular to reduce the wage gap. (Costa Rica)
  • Adopt a comprehensive definition of violence against women that includes economic and symbolic violence. (Greece)
  • Take the necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to ban conversion practices of LGBTQI+ communities, in specific, adopt, as soon as possible, a Welfare Ministry Directive prohibiting social workers from engaging in conversion practices; make further effort to pass a bill outlawing conversion practices within four years. (South Africa)

 

Liechtenstein

Deferred:

  • Increase national policies for the prevention and combat of violence against women, and make efforts to revise the law regarding the practice of sex work and decriminalise this activity. (Uruguay)
  • Harmonize articles 96 to 98(a) of the Criminal Code with a view to legalizing abortions in cases of rape, incest, danger to the life or health of pregnant women or serious foetal malformations, and decriminalize them in all other cases. (Luxembourg)
  • Take more efficient measures against hate speech, with a special focus on women and girls facing intersecting forms of discrimination. (Iceland)
  • Implement measures to evaluate the policies that recognize civil unions between persons of the same sex and/or gender in order to guarantee that equal access to rights is fulfilled between these couples and heterosexual marriage unions. (Argentina)

Luxembourg

Deferred:

  • Allocate sufficient resources to ensure that women who are victims of discrimination and gender-based violence, but are without sufficient means, have access to free legal aid. (South Africa)
  • Continue to strengthen, in the implementation of the Istanbul Convention, its legislative framework concerning the protection of victims of domestic violence, in particular victims of foreign origin, and ensure that they are not subjected to excessive procedural obstacles. (Switzerland)
  • Continue building upon the progress made with the ratification of the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) and with the implementation of a National Action Plan on Equality between Women and Men by focusing specifically on the well-being of girls with disabilities. (Cabo Verde)
  • Advance efforts to prohibit sex reassignment surgery of intersex persons without their consent. (Chile)

 

Mali

Deferred:

  • Implement the ICPD25 commitment to achieve zero unmet need for family planning, including by ensuring sexual and reproductive health services. (Estonia)
  • Criminalize and appropriately punish violence against women in all its manifestations, including physical, psychological, sexual, patrimonial and economic, labour, political, domestic, media and telematic related, institutional and against their dignity. (Paraguay)
  • Continue to put in place measures to eliminate gender-based violence, including amongst the armed forces. (Uganda)
  • Continue efforts to improve universal access to primary health care and care during pregnancy, particularly in rural and conflict areas to reduce maternal and infant mortality. (Djibouti)

Montenegro

Accepted:

  • Remove barriers to girls’ and women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services and ensure access to health care for all women, including transwomen. (Iceland)
  • Provide free legal assistance to victims of gender-based violence by specialized lawyers and include NGOs in the system for free legal aid funded by the state. (The Netherlands)
  • Adopt affirmative measures for the recognition of the gender identity of all individuals, in accordance with their personal autonomy and human dignity. (Argentina)

Noted:

  • Criminalize femicide and marital rape in the Criminal Code. (Mexico)

 

Romania

Deferred:

  • Increase access to free contraceptives for adolescents and women and implement legal measures to ensure that conscientious objection is not used to deny access to legally recognized sexual and reproductive rights in the country. (Costa Rica)
  • Adopt a comprehensive national strategy on sexual and reproductive health, which includes, among other issues, comprehensive sexuality education, access to safe abortion, and access to contraception. (Mexico)
  • Accelerate the implementation of the Istanbul Convention, including by making available sufficient resources, monitoring protection orders, ensuring the full functionality of services for victims in the form of qualified personnel sensitized to gender issues, and fighting against all forms of intersectional discrimination affecting, in particular, Roma women. (Switzerland)
  • Continue to promote legislative and public policy measures to combat all forms of violence against women, including gender stereotypes and intersecting forms of discrimination against women and girls. (Bolivia)

 

Serbia 

Accepted:

  • Continue implementation of measures for promoting gender equality and combatting gender-based violence, including by ensuring pay parity and access to safe reproductive health services. (India)
  • Redouble efforts to combat misogyny in public spaces and discourses and promote the dignity of women in economic, political, and social life. (Paraguay)
  • Intensify efforts to combat gender-based violence and child marriage, which disproportionately affect Roma women and girls, by strengthening their access to effective protection mechanisms. (Peru)
  • Establish mechanisms to guarantee the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly of LGBTI persons; and prevent, investigate and punish acts of discrimination, as well as hate speech and crimes against them. (Mexico)

Deferred:

  • Ensure specialized women’s CSOs can provide gender-responsive and timely free legal aid to victims of sexual and gender-based violence. (The Netherlands)
  • Speed up measures to reduce the wage gap between men and women across all sectors in the workplace, and increase women’s participation in high-paying jobs in accordance with the Strategy for Gender Equality 2021–2030, especially focusing on Roma and rural women. (Honduras)

Tonga

Deferred:

  • Adopt a comprehensive sexual and reproductive health policy for adolescents and ensure that sexual and reproductive health education is part of the compulsory school curriculum. (Luxembourg)
  • Decriminalise abortion. (Iceland)
  • Strengthen efforts to address all forms of violence against women, children and against persons on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, including efforts to prevent violence, support survivors, as well as by removing obstacles that prevent access to justice. (Fiji)

United Arab Emirates

Deferred:

  • Develop the necessary measures to guarantee that all women, regardless of their marital status, have access to sexual and reproductive health services. (Chile)
  • Decriminalise abortion and legalise it in cases of rape, incest, fetal impairment or threat to the health of the mother. (Iceland)
  • Continue its efforts to combat violence against women, as well as patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotypes. (Bolivia)
  • Continue efforts to protect the rights of workers including foreign domestic workers, from discrimination and sexual harassment by strengthening its labour laws and enforcement as well as improving working conditions. (Malaysia)

 

Read the full compilation of sexual rights-related recommendations at UPR 43 Here