On November 13^th, governments, UN heads, international NGOs and civil society organizations gathered in London to develop a fundamental new approach to violence against women and girls (VAWG) in emergency situations, both man-made and natural disasters. These leading humanitarian agencies met to endorse a global commitment acknowledging that, “prevention and response to VAWG in emergencies is life-saving and should be prioritized from the outset of an emergency, alongside other life-saving interventions.”  Nine donor governments (including the UK, US, Australia, Sweden and Japan), six UN agencies, the ICRC, the International Organization for Migration and 21 international NGOs endorsed a communiqué outlining future action and commitments.

When the rule of law crumbles, one of the first things that happen is women become the targets of violence. In times of disaster, such as the recent crisis in the Phillippines, hundreds of thousands of women and girls will become dramatically more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse, rape, forced marriage and trafficking.  Experience has shown that every single humanitarian crisis puts women and girls at great risk, yet during the first stage of an emergency, targeted interventions for VAWG are not prioritized because the violence is not considered life-threatening, according to UK Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening. Child sponsorship data collected in Bangladesh in 2012 revealed that 62% of children under 18 who had married in the previous five years did so during the 2007 Cyclone Sidr. 18 months after the earthquake in Haiti, sexual abuse and exploitation were widespread because girls and women could not get the goods and services needed to survive. Furthermore, the rates of unwanted pregnancies, maternal mortality, disability, unsafe abortions and sexually transmitted infections including HIV, rise during times of displacement and economic hardship. Thus this Call to Action is built around recognizing that the prevention and response to VAWG is life-saving and must be prioritized, not as an afterthought but as standard practice.

These discussions have put forth the political will to take concrete steps to fundamentally influence systemic change while also addressing the root causes of VAWG. According to Julia Drost, policy and advocacy associate in women’s human rights at Amnesty International USA, “addressing gender-based violence can’t just be done in emergencies; it has to occur 24/7 and involve all government entities working overseas.” Which is why the commitments made by UN agencies, governments, donors and NGOs were framed as just the beginning of a process for improving the protection of women and girls in emergencies. These commitments aim to ensure that efforts to prevent and respond to VAWG become standard practice and result in real, positive change through the implementation of an accountability framework.

The humanitarian community has historically not prioritized the protection of women and girls in emergencies claiming lack of funding or lack of trained specialists. In order to reform the humanitarian community’s response to violence against women and girls in emergencies, this Call to Action will involve researching the historical challenges of implementing gender-based violence programs and address them with innovative techniques and sustained commitments.

Responding to VAWG in the first 72 hours of an emergency is a central focus of this initiative as well as sexual and reproductive health services, effective measures to eliminate impunity for the perpetrators of violence, empowering women and girls as a means and an end for tackling VAWG and proactively linking the work being done by the UK government and internationally to ensure commitments made complement existing initiatives. Other important commitments include identifying 20 priority countries that should be adequately stocked with post-rape treatment supplies by 2015; creating new posts in response teams for gender-violence experts; installing solar street lamps in camps and settlements; and increasing funding for gender-based violence initiatives.

UK Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening.

Another positive aspect of these discussions were that The Department for International Development (DFID) announced £21.6 million in new funding to protect women and girls in emergencies. In comparison to the United States’ Safe from the Start initiative to address gender-based violence in global humanitarian emergencies announced on September 23^rd, UK provisions for humanitarian aid are able to provide a life-saving service that the U.S. program is not – access to safe and voluntary abortion for rape victims. Thus, the UK-funded medical care will be able to address the distinct needs of women and children in disasters, providing safe and non-discriminatory access to humanitarian assistance.

Tentative optimism is circulating around this event, with the hopes it can put forth measurable improvements by being prepared rather than reactionary when a disaster strikes. According to Sweden’s International Development Minister and event co-chair Hillevi Engström, “empowerment and protection should go hand in hand.” By focusing on gender inequity, the root causes of violence against women and garnering enough support from donors and humanitarian actors, this Call to Action has the potential make significant progress in filling the gap in disaster planning. Now, where do we go from here? Ms. Engström commented, “We have all the paperwork, polices and resolutions in place. But implementation is the weakest link in the chain. It’s time to stop talking and start acting.” As we are starting to see change and increasing attention to gender-based violence in crisis situations, let’s help give women and girls what they deserve – power, not pity.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 18, 2013

[NEW YORK, NY] – In an historic first, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a groundbreaking resolution supporting abortion services for girls and women raped in armed conflict. Although the Security Council did not use the term “abortion” in Resolution 2122, its language makes clear that Member States and the UN must ensure that all options are given women impregnated by war rape: “noting the need for access to the full range of sexual and reproductive health services, including regarding pregnancies resulting from rape, without discrimination.”

On October 10, 2013, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution aimed at stabilizing the Central African Republic. The Council “reinforced and updated” the mandate of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic (BINUCA) while also calling for a political resolution to the conflict. Philippe Bolopion, the United Nations director for Human Rights Watch commented that “the Security Council is finally waking up to the human rights tragedy plaguing the Central African Republic. Broadening the human rights mandate of the U.N. mission is a good but insufficient first step.” The resolution singled out the rebel Séléka fighters as being responsible for what it called “extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, sexual violence against women and children, rape, recruitment and use of children and attacks against civilians.” In the Central African Republic, coups and violent seizures of power have outnumbered fair elections since independence. Since the March 2013 coup that outsed President François Bozizé, Séléka fighters have held unchecked positions of power in the region – looting, abducting, raping and killing with impunity.

The resolution demanded Séléka rebels “lay down their arms immediately” and allow the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid into the country. Unfortunately, sending humanitarian aid to the Central African Republic will not go far enough to help those women and girls who have become pregnant during this armed conflict. The U.S. is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid (including to the Central African Republic), and due to the abortion ban imposed on all U.S. foreign aid since 1973, women and girls who are impregnated in the mass war rapes taking place in the Central African Republic are denied safe access to abortions. The survivors of these brutal crimes are forced to bear the children of their rapists or die in childbirth, particularly because half of war rape victims are children themselves, too young to give birth safely. These abortion restrictions are supposed to apply only to “abortions [provided] as a method of family planning.” However, its interpretation was expanded to be an absolute ban on abortion and abortion speech, with no rape or life exceptions. President Obama has the opportunity to reverse this inhuman policy, and uphold the right to non-discriminatory medical care under the Geneva Conventions for of girls and women raped in war.

Women’s lives are at stake because of a foreign policy that discriminates against women by withholding live-saving medical care.  It also circumvents the Central African Republic’s own abortion law, which does allow abortions for rape victims – a law that was amended in 2005 to respond to the fact that women impregnated through war rape were dying after desperately seeking unsafe methods of abortion.

Rape survivors who become pregnant and are denied abortions face increased maternal morbidity and mortality. Research shows that without access to safe abortion services, rape survivors will resort to non-sterile or non-medical methods, leading to scarring, infection, sterilization, or death. Furthermore, up to 80 percent of rape victims in armed conflicts are girls under the age of 18, with documented cases of girls as young as eleven becoming pregnant. “Adolescents aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth—as are those in their twenties—and very young adolescents, under 15 years of age, have a fivefold increase in risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth compared with women 20 and older.”

This says nothing of the severe prolonged emotional trauma of the impregnated victim who is forced to bear the child of their rapists. These girls and women are often ostracized from their communities and many take their own lives – the result of a policy that fails to protect these innocent victims of heinous war crimes.

Denial of safe abortion services to women and girls raped in armed conflict is deadly and violates the special rights of war rape victims under the Geneva Conventions. Under the Geneva Conventions, all persons “wounded or sick” in armed conflict have the absolute right to “medical care and attention required by their condition.” No distinctions can be made on any basis other than medical need, and the Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sex. The Security Council has been assigned to investigate and report all violations of human rights in the Central African Republic,which will include the deployment of advisers who specialize in the protection of women and children. However, the U.S. abortion restrictions will thwart any U.N. efforts to address human rights violations in a fully comprehensive way if it does not address the deadly consequences girls and women raped in war are forced to suffer daily as a result of the U.S. policy.

Neither the Security Council advisors who will be deployed in the Central African Republic to focus on the protection of women and children, nor the Central African Republic’s own abortion law, which allows abortions for rape victims, will be able to save the lives of female rape victims who have become pregnant during this conflict. The enforcement of the “no abortion” provision is a violation of international humanitarian law and our obligation to war victims under the Geneva Convention. Angelina Jolie said in her June address to the Security Council, “Because the world has not treated sexual violence as a priority, there have only been a handful of prosecutions for the many hundreds of thousands of survivors. They suffer most at the hands of their rapists, but they are also victims of a culture of impunity.”

The abortion ban attached to U.S. humanitarian aid has influenced the treatment standards for impregnated victims of war rape globally. The Global Justice Center’s August 12^th Campaign seeks to bring justice for survivors of sexual violence in conflict. It is the responsibility of the Security Council to address sexual violence in war zones but all countries, including the U.S., have the responsibility to act now to end medical discrimination against war rape victims.

Excerpts of UK, EU and International Laws, Policies & Practices Relevant to this Duty

Updated as of October 8, 2013

The duty of the United Kingdom ("UK") to respect international law, and in particular international humanitarian law, is firmly rooted in its body of domestic law which implements the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols, and is further supplemented by the laws, regulations, and guidelines of the European Union.
For women raped in armed conflict, abortion is a legal right under international humanitarian law ("IHL"). Girls and women raped in armed conflict are "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions and are entitled, as the ―wounded and sick, to "receive to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required by their condition." This care must also be non-discriminatory. To deny a medical service to pregnant women (abortion), while offering everything needed for victims who are male or who aren't pregnant, is a violation of this requirement of non-discrimination. Therefore, IHL imposes an absolute and affirmative duty to provide the option of abortion to rape victims in humanitarian aid settings; failing to do so violates the Geneva Conventions, its Additional Protocols, and customary international law.

These protections are further supported by international human rights law. The Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee have both declared the denial of abortion to be torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in certain situations. Furthermore, under these treaties, which apply concurrently with humanitarian law during armed conflict, State Parties are required to provide the highest standard of rehabilitative care for torture victims, which includes the provision of complete medical services for injuries resulting from torture. In the case of impregnated female rape victims, such care must include the option of abortion.

This compendium contains excerpts from British legislation, policy, and practice which underscore the UK's commitments to ensure that its humanitarian aid to girls and women raped in armed conflict affords them their full and inalienable rights to medical care under IHL. This requires: (1) access to a complete range of health and life-saving treatments including abortion, and (2) compliance with the tenet of non-discriminatory humanitarian aid for girls and women raped in armed conflict.

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The duty of the United Kingdom (UK) to respect international law, and in particular international humanitarian law, is firmly rooted in its body of domestic law which implements the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols, and is further supplemented by the laws, regulations, and guidelines of the European Union.

For women raped in armed conflict, abortion is a legal right under international humanitarian law (IHL). Girls and women raped in armed conflict are “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions and are entitled, as the “wounded and sick,” to “receive to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required by their condition.” This care must also be non-discriminatory. To deny a medical service to pregnant women (abortion), while offering everything needed for victims who are male or who aren’t pregnant, is a violation of this requirement of non-discrimination. Therefore, IHL imposes an absolute and affirmative duty to provide the option of abortion to rape victims in humanitarian aid settings; failing to do so violates the Geneva Conventions, its Additional Protocols, and customary international law.

These protections are further supported by international human rights law. The Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee have both declared the denial of abortion to be torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in certain situations. Furthermore, under these treaties, which apply concurrently with humanitarian law during armed conflict, State Parties are required to provide the highest standard of rehabilitative care for torture victims, which includes the provision of complete medical services for injuries resulting from torture. In the case of impregnated female rape victims, such care must include the option of abortion.

This compendium contains excerpts from British legislation, policy, and practice which underscore the UK’s commitments to ensure that its humanitarian aid to girls and women raped in armed conflict affords them their full and inalienable rights to medical care under IHL. This requires: (1) access to a complete range of health and life-saving treatments including abortion, and (2) compliance with the tenet of non-discriminatory humanitarian aid for girls and women raped in armed conflict.

The UK is a global leader in providing humanitarian aid and assistance to the victims of armed conflict. The UK should continue to endeavour to comply fully and faithfully with the rights and protections these victims are accorded under IHL.

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All the talk this week will be whether the United States will launch air strikes on Syria, in the wake of the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians in the country’s ongoing civil war. During yesterday’s Senate hearing, Secretary of State John Kerry made the case that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has committed egregious human rights violations, including the violation of one of the most important norms of international law: the ban of using weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) against civilians. President Obama emphasized that potential US strikes is about protecting this fundamental international norm, which is threatened by the Syrian government’s alleged gassing of its own people. Yet, Syria has long been in a state of unrest – and the Global Justice Center takes a look a few other areas in which Syria is violating international law, particularly when it comes to equal protection and rights for women.

Impunity

As has been evident throughout the conflict in Syria, neither the government nor the rebel faction shave been held accountable for their crimes – even when these crimes do not respect international law. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon noted that government abuses were largest in scale. In its 2013 Annual Report on Syria, Amnesty International wrote that “the government took no steps to investigate the numerous allegations against their forces or to bring anyone to justice for alleged gross human rights violations, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The government maintained a reign of impunity, including legislation giving members of the security forces effective immunity for unlawful killings, torture, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations.”

The Global Justice Center is all too familiar with the dangers of governmental impunity through its work with the Burma Law Project. The Burma Constitution perpetuates injustice as a policy by giving complete amnesty to the military for its crimes, including systematic rapes of ethnic women. It also excludes women, just as 2012 Syrian Constitution. With the human rights violations mounting in Syria, including an alarming number of reported rapes and sexual crimes, it is clear that no matter how the conflict in Syria ends, perpetrators must be held accountable on both sides. The international community cannot allow yet another example of war crimes, especially gender-based violence, to be carried out with impunity.

In addition, according to Women under Siege, a journalism project founded by Gloria Steinem, sexual violence is and has been rampant in Syria throughout the conflict. It is perpetrated by both sides, without justice for victims (or, in many cases, even necessary medical care). Women Under Siege has been collecting reports of sexual violence in Syria to document the way rape is being used to terrorize and intimidate the Syrian people. With this data they have created a live, crowd-sourced map. The crimes documented went largely unpunished and represent only a small part of the whole, because sexual violence in Syria is largely underreported.

“With no clear future for Syria in sight, refugees are understandably cautious about who they speak to and trust with sensitive and personal information… It may be hard to put their trust in a stranger when, time and again, there has been little justice for victims of wartime rape.” – Lauren Wolfe, Director, Women Under Siege.

Gender Equality

According to data from the WEF Gender Gap Report on countries’ gender equality progress since the Arab Spring, overall the region’s score increased by a dismal 1.2% from 2010 to 2012. Syria, on the other hand, decreased by 5.3%. That’s right: Syria is moving backwards on women’s rights issues, mainly because of decreases in estimated earned income. In addition, in a list of 135 countries, Syria was ranked an abysmal #111 in the Gender Gap Index for “political empowerment” in 2012 by the report.

“[Syria]’s civil war has coincided with reduced political participation for women and sharply curtailed access to the country’s shattered economy,” wrote Max Fisher, Washington Post’s foreign affairs blogger, in an article.

But Syria is not only moving backwards; the basis on which it started never had equal opportunities for women in the first place.

“While the penal code no longer fully exonerates perpetrators of so-called honor crimes, it still gives judges options for reduced sentences if a crime was committed with “honorable” intent. The nationality law of 1969 prevents Syrian women married to foreign spouses the right to pass on their citizenship to their children or spouses,” Human Rights Watch stated in its 2012 World Report on Syria.

When this tragic and deadly conflict finally comes to an end, any future government in Syria must look towards building long-term stability. A major key to that is to have a government and a constitution that is representative. Women’s rights are not something that can be pushed to the side and fixed only after the country is considered “stable.”In reality, ensuring women’s rights is anecessary step to achieving long-term stability. There must be increased participation in the political process by women if the country is to fulfill the pledge in the 2012 Syrian Constitution of a multi-party system, replacing ade facto one-party system that has hindered democratic reform for the past several decades.

As the world waits to see if the US will strike and what the global fallout from such action will be, it is critical to examine the roots of injustice if Syria can ever hope to move forward.

Donate now to help the Global Justice Center establish global human rights through the rule of law.

MARCH 26, 2013: Medical Women's International Association writes letter to President Obama requesting him to issue an Executive Order lifting the US abortion restrictions on USAID.

Excerpt:

"Members of MWIA recently returned from participating in the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. The theme for 2013 was the Elimination and Prevention of All Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls. Unfortunately, the use of rape to disempower women is prevalent worldwide. Not only do women suffer the immediate emotional trauma and chronic mental illness from this sexual assault but are often left with sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. To deny women the right to terminate such an unwanted pregnancy is unjust. I do not believe that you condone injustice. MWIA talks of “men of good conscience” and I believe that you are such a man. Please step forward and free women from this restriction on their rights."

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Check out an article by Akila Radhakrishnan, Vice President and Legal Director of GJC, about the harsh reality of women who are victims of war rape and the lack of adquate healthcare and protection for these women. 

Read here

August 12, 2013

Why is a young girl in the Central African Republic raped & impregnated, then DENIED access to a safe abortion, when abortion is legal in CAR for cases of rape?

It’s because of a US ban on humanitarian aid.

Read this powerful article from Baroness Kinnock in the Guardian.

On August 12, 1949, the United States signed the Geneva Conventions. Yet, 64 years later we are not living up to our pledge. We provide life-saving medical care to the those “wounded and sick” in war – unless they are young girls and women rape and impregnated through war rape.

That is why, on August 12, 2011, the Global Justice Center launched its August 12th Campaign to end systemic discrimination against girls and women raped and impregnated in armed conflict, who are routinely denied access to safe abortions, even in lifesaving situations and when they’ve been the victim of brutal rape.

We have tremendous progress, but we need your help to WIN.

Help us end this inhumane policy – PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK BY DONATING TODAY.  

A Few Highlights of our August 12^th Campaign:

August 12th, 2011 – The Global Justice Center’s campaign begins.

September 2012 –  A coalition representing over 3,300 groups, has written letters to President Obama, urging him to issue an executive order lifting U.S. abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid for girls and women raped in armed conflict.

January 10, 2013 – The UK announces a historic change in their policy, acknowledging that girls and women raped in armed conflict have absolute legal rights to abortions when medically necessary under the Geneva Conventions.

March 14, 2013 – For the first time in history, the UN Secretary General makes a recommendation in his annual Report on sexual violence in conflict that aid girls and women raped in armed conflict must include services to terminate an unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape.

April 8, 2013 – The Netherlands affirms the right of war rape victims to have access to safe abortion services.

June 24, 2013 – The UN Security Council unanimously passes Resolution 2106, which for the first time, explicitly calls for UN bodies and donor countries to provide “non-discriminatory and comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health.”

But We’re Not Done Yet! Our Work Continues…

This campaign is far from over! Today, Women Under Siege published a compelling piece by GJC Senior Counsel Akila Radhakrishnan, on the devastating effects of the US policy in places of conflict, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With support from people like you, we can end to this discrimination and give a voice to women all over the world. DONATE TODAY.

GJC writes a letter to Chilean Minister of Health, Jaime Manalich Muxi, asking him to allow doctors to perform a life saving abortion on an 11-year old girl who was impregnated after being raped repeatedly by her mother's boyfriend.

Excerpt:

On behalf of the Global Justice Center, I am writing to urge you to immediately permit doctors to perform a therapeutic abortion to save the life and prevent further cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of a young Chilean girl, “Belén,” who faces a life-threatening pregnancy resulting from rape.

Belén, an 11-year old girl, was impregnated after being raped repeatedly for more than two weeks by her mother’s boyfriend. According to Belén’s doctors, the pregnancy has placed her life at risk. If, however, her doctors were to provide her a life-saving abortion, they and Belén would both be found in criminal violation of Chile’s absolute ban on abortion, which allows no exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother. As Chilean law now stands, an 11-year old girl will be forced to endure a life-threatening pregnancy that will either kill her or compel her, a child herself, to give birth to and raise the child of her rapist. This forced pregnancy will continue the violation of her bodily integrity and sovereignty, extending the pain and abuse she has already experienced.

We call on your government to permit a therapeutic abortion as the only humane response to Belén’s predicament, and to reform your restrictive ban on abortion so that future girls and women are not subjected to the physical and psychological dangers of unwanted and life-threatening pregnancies.

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In Chile, the debate over abortion has been rekindled by after the government has cruelly denied an 11-year old girl who was raped and impregnated by her mother’s partner. Instead, she is being forced to bear the child of her rapist. This young victim, Belén, faces a high risk of mortality. However, under Chilean law, she does not have the option of a safe abortion.

Since 1973, established under General Pinochet, Chile has had an abortion ban under all circumstances. This prohibition has sparked a national outrage with the fate of a child hanging in the balance between life and death.

During a recent interview, Belén said that having the baby “will be like having a doll in my arms.” Appallingly, Sebastian Piñera, the President of Chile, commended the young girl’s “depth” and “maturity”  for wanting to have the child, while it is clear that he is far from understanding the “psychological truth of an 11-year-old-girl.”

Chile is one of six countries in the world that has an absolute national abortion ban, with no exception even for life, rape or incest. The case of Beatriz in El Salvador similarly sparked an international debate over abortion bans in a Latin American country. Part of our human rights work at Global Justice Center is to combat medical discrimination against women. Denial of an abortion in life-threatening cases or in cases of rape is cruel and inhumane, and a form of torture to girls and women. In life-threatening cases, it denies a woman’s essential right to life. Therefore, the Global Justice Center wrote and sent a letter to the Chilean Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich Muxi, urging the Chilean government to allow doctors to perform a therapeutic and life-saving abortion on the 11-year old.

Each year, 47,000 preventable deaths result from unsafe abortions. This could be ameliorated by ensuring women’s access to safe abortion services. Yet, even the United States perpetuates this abomination by denying access to safe abortions for girls and women raped and impregnated in armed conflict. Under the Helms Amendment, the US places an abortion ban on all its humanitarian aid, even in pregnancies which result from brutal rape used as a weapon of war. For the young girls under age 18 who represent half of these rape victims, this means potentially fatal health risks, and in too many instances, drives them to risk unsafe abortions or take their own lives in desperation and despair at this injustice. The Global Justice Center works tirelessly to hold the United States to the standards set by International Humanitarian Law and ensure that we live in a world which values the lives of girls and women equal to those of boys and men.

Help us by donating to our work to save women’s lives.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - June 24, 2013

[NEW YORK, NY] - Today, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2106 addressing sexual violence in armed conflict during a debate led by the United Kingdom. Significantly, for the first time, a Security Council Resolution explicitly calls for UN entities and donor countries to provide “non-discriminatory and comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health.” The Global Justice Center applauds the inclusion of this language, which represents a milestone for girls and women impregnated through war rape.

European Parliament adopts second resolution urging humanitarian aid to be independent from US restrictions and ensure sexual violence survivors’ access to safe abortion.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on June 13, 2013, on the post-2015 UN Millennium Development Goals in which it specifically urged that the provision of EU humanitarian aid that contributes to the MDGs should be effectively excluded from the restrictions on humanitarian aid imposed by the USA and other donors on abortion. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty rates to promoting gender equality and promoting women’s empowerment, are agreed to by all countries and leading development institutions. However the implementation of these goals, in particular the reduction of maternal mortality is being jeopardized by the US who, despite unsafe abortion being a lead cause for maternal mortality, does not allow the use of humanitarian aid for abortion services in conflict zones.

The EP Resolution’s refers to the US “no-abortion” prohibition on humanitarian aid (section 31) and states:

31. Urges that the provision of EU humanitarian aid that contributes to the attainment of the MDGs and should effectively be excluded from the restrictions on humanitarian aid imposed by the USA or other donors, in particular by ensuring access to abortion for women and girls who are victims of rape in armed conflicts.

The US “no abortion” prohibition compromises all EU country level and European Commission funding, both for the medical treatment of victims of armed conflict and for ensuring enforcement of humanitarian law. EU countries donate to help victims of armed conflict through various ways, including through the UN, to groups like UNFPA or, to directly to groups working on the ground in conflict area. All these funds are commingled with US funds on the ground and thus compromised.

Click here to view the full resolution. 

“I don’t want to die,” Beatriz said.[1]

Beatriz is a 22-year-old Salvadoran woman who was recently denied the right to an abortion during her high-risk and potentially fatal pregnancy. Her court case has captured international attention, bringing to light the staunch anti-abortion policies of El Salvador and in other areas of Latin America, and around the world, even in life-threatening circumstances.

Beatriz suffers from lupus and other medical complications which worsened during her first pregnancy. Her doctors at the National Maternity Hospital claimed that with the progression of the 26-week pregnancy, Beatriz’s risk of hemorrhaging, kidney failure and maternal death would increase exponentially. Additionally, the fetus had a birth defect called anencephaly, in which a baby develops without parts of its brain and faces very little chance of survival. As a result, Beatriz sought an abortion for the sake of her health and the well-being of her young child at home that she must care for. The Government of El Salvador denied her an abortion despite her, her doctors’, and the international community’s entreaties. On May 29, El Salvador’s Supreme Court upheld the Government’s decision to deny her an abortion, based upon its reading of the country’s abortion ban, which was an “absolute impediment to authorize the practice of abortion.” The court claimed that “the rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those” of the fetus.[2]

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) promptly responded and demanded that the government “immediately adopt the necessary measures to protect the life, personal integrity and health” of Beatriz.[3] In addition, the IACHR held that “the Salvadoran State is obligated to ‘guarantee that the treating medical team has the … protection to fully exercise its function according to the decisions that, based on medical science, said medical team should adopt.’”[4] Such protection of medical personnel—granting them the freedom to make decisions based solely upon medical ethics rather than political considerations—guarantees better outcomes for female patients facing dangerous pregnancies, as it permits medical personnel to prioritize the patient’s welfare above all else. This mandate is also found under international humanitarian law, to protect doctors who provide life-saving abortions in humanitarian settings from prosecution under local criminal abortion laws.

On May 30, El Salvador’s Ministry of Health overrode the Supreme Court’s decision. María Isabel Rodríguez, the Salvadoran Minister of Health, announced that Beatriz would be allowed to end her pregnancy “at the first sign of danger” through an induced birth.[3] As a result, on June 3, Beatriz underwent a Cesarean section. Her daughter was born without a brain, and died five hours later.[5]While the decision of the Ministry of Health should be applauded for having saved the life of one woman, it does not do the necessary work of challenging El Salvador’s strict ban on abortion. The law must be changed so that other Salvadoran girls and women with dangerous pregnancies are not forced into the same suffering, uncertainty, and risk of death as Beatriz faced.

While many countries in Latin America, like Uruguay, Mexico City, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina have relaxed their highly conservative abortion laws, other nations including Chile and Nicaragua continue to maintain misogynistic and repressive restrictions on women’s reproductive rights.[6]Beatriz is one example of thousands of women across Latin America – and the world – who are denied access to safe abortions, even in cases of high risk pregnancies or pregnancies resulting from rape.

Shockingly, the United States, too, perpetuates this inhuman policy, by denying access to safe abortions for girls and women raped in war. This violates the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law (IHL).

Here’s how this US policy violates the Geneva Conventions: The 1973 Helms Amendment places a blanket abortion ban on all US humanitarian aid, even for girls and women who are brutally raped as a weapon of war, and those who face potentially fatal health risks.

The Global Justice Center sent a petition, and has organized a letter-writing campaign, to President Obama and continues to take action to ensure girls and women are guaranteed the nondiscriminatory medical care that is their absolute right under IHL. Bans on abortion maintain a society in which women and girls possess rights to health and life that are less than those of men and boys. It is clear that, as one of Beatriz’s lawyers, Victor Hugo Mata, said: “Justice here does not respect the rights of women.”[2] Action must be taken to change these oppressive policies in El Salvador, the United States and around the world.

[1]Zabludovsky, Karla. “A Salvadoran at Risk Tests Abortion Law.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 May 2013. Web. 04 June 2013. available athttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/world/americas/pregnant-sick-and-pressing-salvadoran-abortion-law.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=americas

[2]Palumbo, Gene and Karla Zabludovsky. “Salvadoran Court Denies Abortion to Ailing Woman.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 May 2013. Web. 04 June 2013. available at  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/world/americas/salvadoran-court-denies-abortion-to-ailing-woman.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

[3]Zabludovsky, Karla. “WORLD BRIEFING | THE AMERICAS; El Salvador: Doctors Can Induce Birth to Save Woman, Official Says.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 May 2013. Web. 04 June 2013. available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/world/americas/el-salvador-doctors-can-induce-birth-to-save-woman-official-says.html?src=recg

[4]Center for Justice and International Law, “Inter-American Court of Human Rights orders the Salvadoran State to interrupt the pregnancy of ‘Beatriz,’” May 30, 2013, available athttp://cejil.org/en/comunicados/inter-american-court-human-rights-orders-salvadoran-state-perform-a-therapeutic-abortion.

[5]Al Jazeera, “El Salvador abortion row baby dies,”June 4, 2013,http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/20136494818222545.html.

[6]Groll, Elias. “El Salvador’s ‘Beatriz’ and the Politics of Abortion in Latin America.”Web log post.Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy, 31 May 2013. Web. 2 June 2013. available athttp://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/31/el_salvador_beatriz_politics_abortion_latin_america

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 16, 2013 [NEW YORK, NY]

The Global Justice Center (GJC) applauds the letter sent by Professor Louise Doswald-Beck to President Obama, urging him to lift US abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid for girls and women raped in armed conflict. Prof. Doswald-Beck is a former head of the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and co-author of the 2005 authoritative codification of the customary rules of international humanitarian law.

GJC is leading the August 12th Campaign, which aims to ensure that girls and women raped in armed conflict have access to safe abortions in humanitarian settings as a part of their rights under international humanitarian law. Lifting the US abortion restrictions is a critical component of our efforts, and Professor Doswald-Beck joins influential legal and human rights groups, Parliamentarians and global legal experts who support the Campaign.

GJC President Janet Benshoof states that “Professor Doswald-Beck's impeccable credentials as one of the world‟s leading authorities on international humanitarian law make her letter to the President on the illegality of the US abortion ban put on humanitarian aid a 'must read' for all of us who care about the role of the US overseas.”

Professor Doswald-Beck's letter details the ways in which omitting an abortion option from medical treatment for female war rape victims violates the protection and care guarantees of the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law:

The denial of abortion violates the medical care guarantees of international humanitarian law.The failure to provide abortions as part of medical care for girls and women raped in war violates the categorical care and protection guarantees of IHL, which are “unchanged since 1864.” These include the rights of the “wounded and sick” to all necessary medical care, as required by their condition, under common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

The denial of abortion violates the absolute prohibition on gender discrimination under international humanitarian law. The denial of abortions for girls and women impregnated as a result of war rape violates the IHL prohibition on “adverse distinction,” including discrimination based on gender, since boys and men raped in war receive all necessary medical care. Professor Doswald-Beck states that IHL, as well as human rights law, precludes using biological differences to justify less favorable treatment for women and that although the medical treatment for female victims of rape may be different from that of male victims of rape, under IHL, “the outcome for each gender” must be the same.

The denial of abortion constitutes torture and cruel treatment in violation of international humanitarian law. Given that pregnancy aggravates the serious, sometimes life-threatening, risks of the injuries from brutal rape perpetrated in armed conflict, the failure to provide abortion violates the prohibition against torture or cruel treatment under common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Professor Doswald-Beck states that although the parties to a conflict have primary obligations to provide care, all states, including the US, have a duty to “respect and ensure respect” for IHL under common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, including in the provision of humanitarian aid to war victims. Accordingly, Professor Doswald-Beck urges President Obama to lift US abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid, which she describes as leading to a “thoroughly inhuman” situation.

Benshoof adds “The President should heed her call and that of thousands of others. This terrible and shocking US policy is killing some women impregnated by war rape and causing lifelong suffering for others. No girl surviving brutal rape in armed conflict should be forced to bear the child of her rapists-torturers. President Obama should be seeking ways to advance, not subvert, the rights of girls and women raped in war under the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law.”
 

Visit www.globaljusticecenter.net to learn more about the Global Justice Center's August 12th Campaign.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - April 16, 2013

[NEW YORK, NY]– The Global Justice Center (GJC) applauds the letter sent by Professor Louise Doswald-Beck to President Obama, urging him to lift US abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid for girls and women raped in armed conflict. Prof. Doswald-Beck is a former head of the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and co-author of the 2005 authoritative codification of the customary rules of international humanitarian law.

Louise Doswald-Beck, the former Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross' Legal Division (ICRC), former Director of the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law (CUDIH) and former Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists wrote to President Obama on how the US abortion prohibition attached to humanitarian aid violates the rights of women and girls raped in armed conflict under IHL, and is a form of torture.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - April 9, 2013

[AMSTERDAM, NL]- Frans Timmermans, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and Lilaane Ploumen, Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, just affirmed to parliamentary questions submitted in March 2013 in the Netherlands that the foreign ministry agrees with the UK that abortion can be a necessary medical procedure under international humanitarian law, which then must be provided regardless of national laws in countries. The questions were asked by Parliamentarian Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, a Member of the Dutch party D66.