Article 12
1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning.
2. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph I of this article, States Parties shall ensure to women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)
Gender Equality is an affirmed main goal of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. These amount to the goals that are argued for and worked towards by the international community based on the desire for greater equality and sustainability of the world’s systems. A lofty feat by a proliferating species.
We deplete the natural resources and pillage the ecosystem and overpopulate based on current sustainability of modern technology. This can increase into the future with technological trends and improvements in, for example, agricultural technologies. However, there is a considerable aim to work with the inclusion of half of the species: women.
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women or the CEDAW from 1979 is one such document to set about stipulating the needed changes and affirming the rights of women for the greater equality of the sexes. The desire is for the inclusion of more people into the world’s systems.
It is in this that Article 12(1) deals with not only the reduction but the elimination of the discrimination against women in the area of healthcare. For the equality of men and women – it states – the need for access to health care services, this is vitally important as the needs may differ for men and women in the areas of health care services in some particulars but the general idea is the essential need for the equal provision of the sexes in regards to their health and well-being through formal medical services.
This also includes a small rejoinder on the need for those healthcare services related to family planning. It is important as a stipulation because some of the basic ideas of those who want to repress women and some men, especially poor men and males of color, is to attack their ability to get a proper education for themselves or their children about planning a family life into the future from the present.
Any lack of provision in this regard would violate the stipulation of Article 12(1) of the Convention. Also, we can see with Article 12(2) the need for the governments or the “States Parties” to be able to provide for the women in regards to appropriate services for their needs. These include things like pregnancy, confinement, and the post-natal period.
There may be circumstances, and for certain legitimate ones, in which there should be the free provision of healthcare services for those in need of it. Another area is the proper nutrition during pregnancy and lactation or the period of breastfeeding. A child not provided with the adequate nutrition through gestation and during the breastfeeding phase will suffer from the consequences of the malnutrition for much of the rest of their lives.
It is morally imperative that the women who are pregnant or who have infants in need of breastfeeding are given the adequate food and nutrition resources in order to provide for their child in a sufficient manner because of the importance of the earliest years of life for proper and fully development into maturity.
Indeed, the basic provision here is not only a matter of healthcare and women’s rights but also to the right of decent health and well-being for the child in the best interests of child, which is proper nutrition in the most vital time of life. That time during gestation and after birth. It is a harrowing experience of a life for those who have not been provided for in a sufficient manner through adequate nutrition via their mother who have been nutritionally impoverished.
It will affect them for the rest of their life and to not provide for the mothers – and so the wanted fetus and infant in this case – is simply not short of criminal. Article 12 speaks to the need for women to be equal with men around the wold in terms of healthcare, which then has ripple affects to other vulnerable sectors of the society including infants.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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