IPPF recognizes and believes that all persons have a right to liberty and security of the person and, therefore, commits itself to the following:1

2.1 All persons have the right to be free to enjoy and control their sexual and reproductive life, having due regard to the rights of others.

2.2 All persons have the right to be free from any medical intervention related to their sexual and reproductive health save with their full, free and informed consent.

2.3 All females have the right to be free from all forms of genital mutilation.

2.4 All persons have the right to be free from sexual harassment.2 AND further commits itself to taking all steps to ensure the attainment of the following rights:

2.5 All persons have the right to be free from externally imposed fear, shame, guilt, beliefs based on myths, and other psychological factors inhibiting their sexual response or impairing their sexual relationships.

2.6 All persons have the right to be free from forced pregnancy, sterilization and abortion.

Notes
7 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, Art. 9.1 : “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as are established by law.”
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Art. 3: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict, 1974, Paragraph 4: “…All the necessary steps shall be taken to ensure the prohibition of measures such as persecution, torture, punitive measures, degrading treatment and violence, particularly against that part of the civilian population that consists of women and children.”

8 The prohibition on employment discrimination in Article 11 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1979, is helpfully explicated in General Recommendation 19 in relation to sexual harassment:
'Equality in employment can be seriously impaired when women are subjected to gender specific violence, such as sexual harassment in the workplace.
Sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour as physical contacts and advances, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, and sexual demands, whether by words or actions. Such conduct can be humiliating and may constitute a health and safety problem; it is discriminatory when the woman has reasonable grounds to believe that her objection would disadvantage her in connection with her employment, including recruitment or promotion, or when it creates a hostile working environment.'

CEDAW adopted Recommendation 19 on Violence Against Women, in January 1992, at its 11th session.

IPPF recognizes and believes that all persons have a right to liberty and security of the person.

The right can be used to address issues relating to:

• Female genital mutilation (FGM), also referred to as female circumcision (FC) and female genital cutting (FGC)
• Protection of children, women and men from sexual abuse and exploitation
• Protection from medical intervention related to sexual and reproductive health unless it is carried out with the full, free and informed consent of the person
• Forced sterilization
• Forced abortion
• Laws or practices requiring spousal or parental consent for contraception or abortion
• Laws which imprison women for terminating their own pregnancies
• Externally imposed fear, shame or guilt and false beliefs which inhibit sexual response or impair the capacity to enjoy sexual relationships

Facts & figures

• FC/FGM affects over 90 million women throughout the world.1
• Women who have undergone FGM are twice as likely to die during childbirth and are more likely to give birth to a stillborn child than other women.2
• In South Africa, 30 per cent of young women indicate that their first sex was coerced.3
• Nepal, September 2002: abortion became legal up to 12 weeks gestation and up to 18 weeks if due to rape or incest.4
• In Peru, an untold number of women were sterilized without their consent between 1996 and 2000. Official ministry records show 507 interviews with women who had been sterilized, 90 per cent of whom had not given informed consent.5

1 Mbugua, I. (1997) ‘Ending the Mutilation’ People and the Planet Vol 6 No. 1 p17
2 Reymond, L., Mohamud, A. and Ali, N. Female Genital Mutilation – The Facts
3 UNFPA (2003) State of World Population p20
4 IPPF South Asia Region (2002)
5 WOMENSENEWS via PLANetWIRE Clips (30 August 2002) [PLANetWIREClips@ccmc.org]