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Human Rights Watch’s experience, in particular in Latin America, has reaffirmed that women’s ability to decide if, when, how often, and with whom to have children is fundamental to their ability to make independent decisions about work, education and family life. Restrictions imposed on access to safe and legal abortion, in addition to other sexual and reproductive health services, violate women’s rights to health, to non-discrimination and equal treatment, to privacy, to be free of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and the right to the benefits of scientific progress, among others. This article draws links between abortion and human rights while illustrating the scope for advocacy in the varying abortion contexts in Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. The authors explore entry points for activism and change as they highlight regional commonalities and contextual differences with respect to abortion. …

‘Gender equality’ may have made it into the language of mainstream development. But in most parts of the world, inequalities between women and men in the workplace, in political institutions and in the home have proven exasperatingly persistent. For all the valiant efforts that have been made, gender mainstreaming has largely failed live up to its promises. The dilution and depoliticization of the ‘gender agenda’ as it has come to be taken up by development institutions calls for more attention to be paid to what it takes to make a difference to women’s lives. …

When the Sierra Leone civil war was declared over in January 2002, the concept of women’s empowerment was firmly entrenched in development discourse and practice. The aftermath of the brutalities of rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, abduction, among other atrocities that women and children, especially girls, were subjected to during Sierra Leone’s eleven years’ civil war was firmly on the post-war agenda. There was a groundswell of protest from women’s NGOs and activists demanding the protection and promotion of women’s rights as part of peace negotiations, post-conflict reconstruction and peace consolidation processes.  …

This article reflects on the lessons learnt about strategies for increasing access to abortion from an 11 country comparative policy analysis known as the Johannesburg Initiative. It reflects on the value of learning and sharing strategic thinking while remembering that opportunities for litigation, policy change, shifts in programming, or even changing public opinion are often place and time specific, so that what leads to victory in one place cannot necessarily be repeated in another. The task is to build the evidence, the legal and health system capacity, the engagement with the public and policymakers to be able to take advantage of windows of opportunity as they arise. The article also suggests that while many gains have been made in winning a broader base of support for the idea of sexual and reproductive rights internationally, there is an urgent need to reinvigorate this movement, particularly through greater leadership, organisational and strategic engagement by activists from developing countries. …

The paper explores the increasing inter-connectivity of the economic and religious ‘right’ through consideration of recent events in Nicaragua. It examines the policy discourse of the state and the international development banks though consideration of a Conditional Cash Transfer programme and highlights how this draws on notions of family and family values, notions more generally promoted by the Church. It suggests that those that seek to resist the actions of these three actors face a difficult challenge, not least since their own counter-actions continue to be largely un-connected. The discussion highlights how on the one hand women’s movements have tended to focus on the threats to sexual and reproductive rights from neo-conservative forces, while on the other, those that work with women’s groups at the community level have tended to respond to the real economic need of the women that result from neo-liberal policies. …

Camilo Antillón Najlis identifies the interests and priorities of different actors in the development industry in Nicaragua regarding sexuality issues, through the analysis of documents produced by FED and civil society organisations (FED's framework document and 122 project proposals) in the context of two of the project selection processes one in 2006 and the other in 2007. …

This paper focuses on processes involved in the Obasanjo administration’s appropriation of feminist language and meanings in its economic empowerment and development strategy, NEEDS. This appropriation of progressive ideas takes apparently gender neutral forms, through the presentation of the government’s economic and development agenda as partitioned from political practice, as well as forms that are more specifically oriented to the terms ‘gender’ and ‘empowerment’. On both tracks, appropriation involves the erasure of power in the production of altered meanings. I argue that NEEDS works ideologically to manufacture hegemony and the illegitimacy of dissent with regard to the government’s reform programme. …

Presentation on the Pathways of Women's Empowerment and meanings around conceptualising empowerment. Translated by Cecilia Sardenberg into Portuguese. …

Latin America and the Caribbean have among the highest levels of unsafe abortions, and current debate rages to change the abortion-related laws and policies. In response, the International Planned Parenthood Federation – Western Hemisphere Region has established a three-pronged framework to fight unsafe abortions, based on promoting the right to increasing access and reducing need, promoted through a range of service and advocacy components. In this case study, a Uruguayan partner organization, ‘Iniciativas Sanitarias’ (IS), adapts this rights-based framework for local application, creating the harm reduction approach. Based on the rights to information, health and women’s autonomy, the IS seeks to empower women and strengthen the commitment of health professionals to provide safer abortion information and services based on the bioethical principles of autonomy, justice and patient-provider confidentiality. …

Lydia Alpı´zar Dura´n was invited to address the annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). She shares her reflections as someone who joined the women’s movement in the midst of the Beijing preparations as a youth activist. She discusses the importance of the development community focusing on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and going beyond the Millennium Development Goals. She presents key insights from the work on advancing women’s rights and gender equality over the last 15 years along with a review of some relevant current trends and concludes with a set of action-oriented recommendations. …

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), celebrated by feminist activists as a triumph for women's rights, is 20 years old. The world that it once described has changed profoundly in some respects, and yet in others remains surprisingly similar. This IDS Bulletin reflects on those changes and continuities, tracing the trajectories of the Beijing conference in different policy arenas, national settings and domains of practice. …

In Nigeria, within marriage, women are expected to pleasure their husbands, and preparation for marriage focuses on teaching the girl how to do so. In contrast, non-married women were expected to enjoy sex with their boyfriends. Yet, what emerged from research by Aken’Ova’s organisation INCRESE (The International Centre for Reproductive Health and Rights) was women’s deep lack of sexual pleasure in their relationships, married or not. Some men mistakenly believed they were giving great pleasure to their lovers, and had not discovered the truth due to lack of communication. …

The paper will examine some of the critical issues raised by the women's movement in India on the violence experienced by women both within the family and through modes of development initiated by the state in India and the manner in which the state has sought to both counter feminist critiques as well as co-opt them through state initiated policies. It will particularly examine literacy and micro-credit programmes to argue that the rhetoric of empowerment functions as a new 'mantra' which does little to even dent the violence of women's everyday lives especially when they are poor and located on the social margins. …

This article discusses a state-run economic empowerment initiative Chapeu de Palha Mulher which is having a transformational effect supporting women to follow pathways into jobs which were once considered to be ‘men’s jobs’. …

The Chinese NGO Pink Space organises exchanges to build solidarity between people marginalised because of their sexuality and challenge the sources of their oppression, as He explains. Pink Space brings together HIV positive women, lesbians, bisexual women, female sex workers, transgender men, and women married to gay men. Fun, laughter and discussions of sexual pleasure are always part of the agenda. He describes how a focus on sexual pleasure promoted solidarity between women. …