Diana Brown

This title is chosen because there are many who deny any role for sexuality beyond reproduction.

So what sort of rights are we considering?

1. The right to own one's own body. This includes the right to decide whether, when and with whom to have sexual experiences, always provided that such experiences are not harmful to another. (The question of harmful but consensual sado-masochistic practices needs consideration, but perhaps not in this forum.) Most of the other rights may be considered to flow from this primary right.

2. The right to adequate education and information about sex and reproduction.

3. The right to decouple sexual experiences from reproduction, in recognition of the multiple uses and effects of sexuality.

4. The right to choose whether or not to marry.

5. The right to choose one's marital partner.

6. The right to decide whether and when to have children or to cease childbearing.

7. The right to a reasonable standard of sexual and reproductive health care.

8. The right to joint responsibility for children born to a marriage.

9. The right to end one's marriage for adequate reason and with adequate safeguards for the welfare of the other partner and any children.

10. Protection from sexual abuse while a minor unable to exercise all the other rights.

Not all these rights are equally recognised worldwide, particularly for women. It is also obvious that they sit within the wider context of general human rights. Difficulties in according these rights to women are often related to the overall status of women.

Where the status of women is low, they are most likely to be viewed primarily in a sexual or reproductive capacity.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Here are some UN websites which give information about international agreements that touch on this subject matter. Note, however, that the UN is always hamstrung by the need to seek consensus, with the result that many of the articles are watered down and toothless.

CEDAW

See particularly Article 16.

Convention on the Rights of the Child.

See particularly Articles 19, 24, 34 and 35.

ICPD Cairo 1994

FWCW Beijing 1995

See particularly Articles 38 and 39.

Gender and Reproductive Rights

Safe Motherhood

Sexual Health

Diana Brown

Born 1940. Degree in Mathematics, Oxford. Experience in teaching and in the computer industry. For 11 years from 1986 was on the board of Population Concern (recently renamed Interact Worldwide) and chaired the board from 1990 to 1995. With her husband, Roy Brown, she was a co-founder of the World Population Foundation. Both these organisations work with NGOs in developing countries to provide reproductive and sexual health care. They also engage in advocacy and fundraising for this cause in their respective base countries (UK and Netherlands). Diana has been a committed Humanist since the age of 17 and was IHEU's UN NGO Representative in Geneva for two years.