Sexual and reproductive rights

Overview

Sexuality is a key part of being human. It is multifaceted and relates to not only our bodies but our gender identity, sexual orientation, our experience of eroticism and intimacy, and reproduction.  

Being able to make decisions about how to express our sexuality, including our sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as about our bodies, our personal relationships, the form and shape of one’s family and the destination of one’s life path, among other things, is essential to our bodily autonomy and dignity. 

However, across the world, millions of people, particularly members of marginalized and stigmatized communities and those living in poverty, are prevented from making free and informed decisions about their bodies. In many countries this happens because governments try to dictate how people form intimate relationships, or express desire, as well as whether and when to have children. This affects women, girls and LGBTI people in particular, but it’s not just about individuals, it impacts whole communities.  

What is sexual and reproductive health?

What international legal obligations do states have to protect our sexual and reproductive rights?

Reproductive justice

Historically and across the world, governments have attempted to control and exploit the bodies of women, particularly those from marginalized communities, for their own political purposes to the detriment of women’s sexual and reproductive rights, severely limiting their potential. This has been done in the context of other multiple oppressions including based on race, class, ability, age and migration status.  

Recognizing the limitations of the reproductive rights framework, a group of Black women in the United States coined the concept “reproductive justice”. The concept aims to recognize that reproductive health is deeply intertwined with all facets of our lives and is also a matter of social justice. As Loretta J. Ross, one of the most pivotal voices in the movement, puts it: “Reproductive justice addresses issues of population control, bodily self-determination, immigrants’ rights, economic and environmental justice, sovereignty, and militarism and criminal injustices that limit individual human rights because of group or community oppressions.”  

Rising fundamentalisms, increasing militarism and securitization, diminishing rule of law, inequality, shrinking civil society spaces and authoritarian practices have dire consequences on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women, girls and LGBTI people. 

Criminalisation of sexuality and reproduction

Pregnancy Criminalization

In countries including El Salvador, Norway, Russia, Ukraine and the USA people who are pregnant can be targeted with punitive policies and practices based on their real or perceived behaviour. In the US, for example, “fetal assault” laws, which allow fetuses to be legally defined as “victims” of assault, have been used to prosecute women who miscarried or were suspected of harming their fetus.  

Hundreds of women in the USA have faced arrest, interrogation, prosecution and detention after disclosing what they believed was confidential information to a health care provider, or simply when seeking routine or emergency medical care. Many US states have incorporated similar definitions of “person” into state criminal codes in order to include fertilized eggs, embryos or fetuses as potential “victims” of violent crime. Such punitive regulation violates women’s human rights including their right to bodily autonomy. 

Criminalization of sex outside marriage

In countries including Cameroon, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, parts of the United States and Taiwan, sex between people who are not married is treated as a crime and in some cases carries severe penalties. Punishments range from lengthy prison sentences to flogging, or, in a small number of states, death by stoning. 

Criminalization of same-sex relations

Consensual same-sex sexual acts are treated as a crime in approximately 60 countries around the world, according to data from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).  

In Hungary, an anti-LGBTIQ+ law bans education and advertising that is deemed to “popularize” or even depict, consensual same-sex conduct or the affirming of one’s gender to children. 

In China, people looking to access gender-affirming treatments and related health care or modify their sex characteristics to accord with their sense of gender identity face a catalogue of barriers. 

Criminalization of sex work

Many countries outlaw sex work by applying laws that criminalize the act of exchanging sex for money or goods and/or the full range of activities related to the selling or buying of sex, such as solicitation and renting a premise for engaging in sex work, among others. Other countries such as New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark and parts of Australia, have decriminalized or legalized sex work, regulating it through licensing or zoning restrictions.  

Laws and policies that criminalize sex work, directly or indirectly, violate several human rights. In casting sex workers as either criminals worthy of contempt or as victims who cannot consent to selling sex, these sanctions frequently deny them their dignity and personal autonomy over their bodies and lives.  

Criminalizing people living with HIV

92 countries reported that they criminalise HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission, according to 202 data from UNAIDs. These laws, which tend to disproportionately affect marginalized populations, are counterproductive as they undermine efforts to prevent new HIV infections and violate the right to equality and non-discrimination. 

What can states do to empower people to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights?

States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil everybody’s sexual and reproductive rights. They also have a duty to address the social, economic and political factors that prevent many people from accessing and exercising these rights. There are many ways in which they can do this: 

• Empower people to exercise their rights and support social movements promoting sexual and reproductive rights. 
• Ensure access to comprehensive sexuality education for people from a young age so they have all the tools they need to exercise their bodily autonomy. 
• Carry out public awareness campaigns on harmful social norms, stereotypes, practices and behaviours that negatively impact the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights.
• Address structural and systemic issues and barriers that impact the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights, particularly by marginalized groups, including those facing discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, caste,  sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics, migration status, disability, rural and urban divide, among others. 
• Refrain from passing laws and abolish laws and practices that punish people for exercising their sexual and reproductive rights at home and abroad. 

What is Amnesty doing to promote sexual and reproductive rights?

In the face of a historic attempt to rollback our sexual and reproductive rights, Amnesty International is campaigning alongside activists from across the world to ensure our most basic human rights are protected.  

We do this by researching, campaigning and advocating in partnership with feminist organizations to fight back on the rollback of rights. 

Want to learn more about these issues? Check out our report “Body Politics: Criminalization of Sexuality and Reproduction”