This month, the Center for Reproductive Rights was involved in a discussion at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on how structural barriers to reproductive freedom are informing the cycle of poverty and the importance of addressing those barriers with the aim of achieving gender equality. We also launched a new manual at a CSW event hosted by Ireland celebrating legal and policy reforms on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) from around the world. And a new report confirms that two years into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, refugees from Ukraine continue to face insurmountable barriers to sexual and reproductive health care.

Global

The Center at CSW

At CSW last week, the Center's Rachana Desai Martin, Chief Government and External Relations Officer, moderated a discussion called, "The Impacts of Poverty and Criminalization on Access to Abortion." Salima Namusobya, the Center's Vice President for Africa, also spoke on the panel. At this event, cross-regional panelists discussed the critical importance of addressing structural barriers to bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom—including by decriminalizing abortion—in order to address the cycle of poverty and achieve gender equality.

New Report: Pathways to Change: Building Stronger Legal Guarantees for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

This month at CSW, we launched a powerful advocacy manual that details how 23 organizations in 13 countries have moved the needle on SRHR laws and policies. Each country's journey to SRHR reform is unique, shaped by social, cultural, historical, legal, and political factors. Pathways to Change offers strategies and learnings that can be adapted by other countries. This handbook of global achievements highlights the diversity of tactics employed to achieve SRHR progress from Ireland to Peru, Kenya to the Philippines. Download your copy today and share with others in the movement.

Europe

Refugees from Ukraine Still Cut Off from Reproductive Health Care Two Years into War

Two years into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, refugees from Ukraine continue to face insurmountable barriers to sexual and reproductive health care in Poland and across many parts of the European Union (EU)—forcing some refugees to return to a war zone to access the care they need. Since the invasion began, the Center and eight partner organizations that provide direct care to refugees in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have documented the harmful impacts of barriers to reproductive health care on women and girls fleeing Ukraine. A newly released study by the European Institute for Gender Equity (EIGE)—an official body of the EU—identified several gaps in the availability and accessibility of rape crisis care, contraception, and other sexual and reproductive health care for refugees from Ukraine, findings that reflect the details documented last year in the Center's joint Care in Crisis report.

"Refugees from Ukraine still face significant barriers to sexual and reproductive health care in many parts of the EU, taking a significant toll on their health and compounding the trauma many endured before leaving Ukraine. EU institutions and member states need to urgently address these barriers to ensure that the EU's promise of safety and security for refugees from Ukraine is realized for all women from Ukraine."

—Leah Hoctor, Senior Director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights