Health

1. Provide women with good, affordable health care, information and related services, throughout their life cycle.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES:

You have the right to the highest attainable level of physical and mental health and the right to equal access to health services, including family planning. ICESCR 12; CEDAW 12; CRC 24

You have the right to an adequate standard of living for yourself and your family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care. ICESCR 11; CEDAW 14h; ICERD 5e,iii; CRC 27:1

If you are a rural woman, you have the right to access to adequate health care facilities, including information, counseling and services in family planning. CEDAW 14b

If you are disabled, you have the right to medical, psychological and functional treatment, and to medical and social rehabilitation. DRD 6

Special attention should be given to the health needs and rights of women belonging to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, such as migrant women, refugee and internally displaced women, the girl-child and older women, women in prostitution, indigenous women and women with physical or mental disabilities. CEDAW GR 24:6

ACTIONS:

  • Provide accessible and affordable quality health care, including family planning information and services.
  • Pass laws that allow women to insist on safe and responsible sex practices and that include information programmes for men.
  • Train researchers and introduce systems that allow for the use of gender-sensitive statistics in policy making, planning, monitoring and evaluation.
  • Reduce maternal mortality rates by at least 50% of the 1990 level by the year 2000 and a further one half by the year 2015.
  • Ensure that disabled women and girls of all ages receive supportive services.
  • Stop harmful, medically unnecessary or coercive medical procedures.
  • Integrate mental health services into the primary health care system.
  • Ensure that safe drinking water and sanitation are available and accessible.
  • Increase funds available for primary health care and social services, with adequate support for secondary and tertiary levels, and give priority to health programmes in rural and poor urban areas.

2. Strengthen prevention programmes that promote women's health.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES:

You have the right to special health services with respect to family planning, pregnancy, child birth and the postnatal period, that are provided free where necessary. ICESCR 12:2a; CEDAW 12:2; CRC 24:1d,f; CEDAW GR 24:2

Your employer must observe international standards of occupational health and safety, including protections regarding night work and work with lead, radiation, benzene and harmful chemicals. NWC 4-10; WLC; BC; RPC; CC

Appropriate and effective measures must be taken to eradicate female circumcision and other traditional practices harmful to the health of women. CEDAW GR 14

3. Establish gender-sensitive procedures for sexually-transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health issues.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES:

States must include information on AIDS and its effect on women in their national-level actions to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and give special attention to the rights and needs of women and children. CEDAW GR 15

ACTIONS:

  • Develop community strategies to protect women from AIDS and ensure participation of women, especially those infected with HIV/AIDS, in planning and services.

4. Promote research and disseminate information on women’s health.

ACTIONS:

  • Support research on unsafe abortions and review laws related to abortion.

Health: Achievements

  • Longer life expectancy in many countries, partly due to increased awareness among policy makers of the need for health programmes covering women’s whole life cycle.
  • Increased attention to high mortality rates among women and girls from malaria, tuberculosis, water-borne diseases, communicable and diarrhoel diseases and malnutrition.
  • Increased attention to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights of women.
  • Increased knowledge and use of family planning and contraceptive methods as well as more awareness among men of their responsibility in this area.
  • Increased attention to sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, among women and girls.
  • Increased attention to breast-feeding, nutrition, and infants’ and mothers’ health.
  • Introduction of a gender perspective in health and health related educational and physical activities, and gender-specific programmes on substance abuse.
  • Increased attention on women’s mental health, health conditions at work, environmental considerations and a recognition of the specific health needs of older women.