Why a gender and human rights approach to womens reproductive health?
Elaine M. Murphy, PhD, Women’s Reproductive Health Initiative, PATH, Inc, 1990 M. Street, NW #700, Washington, DC 20036, 202-822-0033, emurphy@path-dc.org The International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo (Cairo) in September of 1994 marked a major turning point within the international public health community from population control to an unprecedented emphasis on gender and rights. It also called for a broad array of reproductive health (RH) services–not just family planning to meet fertility-reduction goalsin order to meet womens real reproductive and sexual needs. The Cairo Program of Action devoted all of Chapter VII to explaining the concepts of RH and reproductive rights and for the first time urged action to address the gender inequity that underlies unwanted high fertility, maternal mortality and STD/HIV among women. This presentation will review the findings of recent Cairo +5 exercises undertaken by the United Nations and NGOs to assess how well the Cairo
