A girl along with her mother, that has actually Aids, in a hospital in Uganda. A disproportionate variety of girls and young women in the country contract HIV. Photograph: AfriPics/Alamy
It is widely recognised that, if the transformations outlined in the sustainable improvement goals (SDGs) are to be achieved, respecting, protecting and fulfilling the human rights of women and girls – including their sexual and reproductive rights – will certainly be essential.
However, there is a considerable barrier to this that often goes unmentioned: the role of some religious institutions and conservative religious ideologies.
Related: Sexual good health gets little focus in a crisis, along with devastating outcomes | Tewodros Melesse
For example, until regarding a month ago, the US Department of good health and Human Services given $10m (£6.8m) a year in grants for abstinence-based education, an approach informed directly by Christian ideology and initiated by President Ronald Reagan. Over the past 25 years, the US government has actually spent a lot more compared to $1.5bn supporting this approach, despite the honest truth that there is no research to demonstrate it achieves sustainable positive results.
On the contrary, mounting evidence supports the value of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in advancing young people’s sexual and reproductive health, too as their rights. A recent Unesco review of 87 CSE programmes, including 29 in poorer countries, found several positive outcomes for adolescents.
Lack of access to contraception and safe abortion is a global crisis marked by a tension between ideology and evidence. In Latin America, the impact of the Zika virus means ideology holds sway: women are advised to “steer clear of pregnancy”, however there has actually been no corresponding provision of basic access to affordable and acceptable modern contraception and no repealing of laws that criminalise abortion. In Namibia, a disproportionate variety of girls and young women contract HIV; rather than addressing the root causes, authorities tell women living along with HIV that they must not have actually children. In some cases this has actually been enforced through coerced sterilisation.
Research from the Association for Women’s Rights in improvement (Awid) details the several means that religious fundamentalism undermines progression on sexual and reproductive good health and rights (SRHR). The report, The Devil is in the Details (pdf), points out that women’s bodies – and the bodies of individuals that don’t conform to norms of binary gender and heterosexuality – are frequently a serious focus for religious fundamentalists. Curtailing women’s options regarding their bodies and sex lives is a common denominator across various forms of fundamentalism.
In addition to struggles at local and national level, an ongoing battle persists in worldwide human rights spaces. In March 2016, the UN Commission on the Status of Women agreed by consensus to a resolution on women, girls and HIV. For several women’s rights activists, the resolution’s failure to call on governments to implement CSE as an crucial component of HIV prevention came as a disappointment. On the others hand, for the very first time in several years, there was no reference to abstinence-only education.
Related: ‘Protect against making sex a taboo’: young individuals speak out on family planning
These examples expose widespread tension between protecting women’s sexual and reproductive rights and implementing programmes that reflect religious norms. In the UN, these tensions are evident in the increasingly sturdy presence of religious fundamentalists – as some NGOs and member states, and the Holy See, articulate fundamentalist precepts as government policy, and tactically portray demands for SRHR and gender equality as infringements on traditional values.
Such a fraught dynamic hampers sustainable development. Research from Awid notes the difficulty in challenging an “us” versus “them” agenda. “It can easily be difficult,” they note, “to question or challenge community leaders or national leaders as quickly as they define Exactly how points are supposed to be done on the basis that it is ‘our culture.’”
Weak good health infrastructure and capacity develop fertile ground for religious fundamentalism. Awid notes that where states have actually stopped providing services such as healthcare and schooling, fundamentalists have actually stepped in to the breach. For this, “they reap rewards: the loyalty of the populations they serve and access to brand-new channels to spread ideology”. One analysis of Pepfar, a far-reaching US government programme of foreign Assist for HIV programming, found that “where social services have actually assumed the form of chronic emergency relief … religious organisations have actually come to play an increasingly prominent role.”
The analysis added: “In the context of an ongoing public good health crisis, Pepfar has actually institutionalised the social authority of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches.”
Awid urges improvement actors to relocate away from programming that minimises state responsibility for providing services and social safety nets. At the very same time, they pressure the importance of prioritising progressive local partners, to steer clear of giving resources or legitimacy to religious fundamentalists that curtail women’s rights.
Feminist organisations coming with each other to mark International Day of Action for Women’s Health on Saturday do so along with a sense of urgency. The spread of Zika and its impact on pregnant women and their children, and the disproportionate impact of HIV on girls and young women in eastern and southern Africa (pdf), shows the should act now. Collective action will certainly be crucial to advancing gender justice and sustainable development.
• Susana T Fried is a global good health justice partnership fellow at Yale University and was previously senior gender adviser at the UN improvement Programme
