Ashley Judd speaks out on the right of women to control their bodies and be free from male violence
UNITED NATIONS — Actor Ashley Judd, whose accusations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein have fueled the #MeToo movement, spoke out Monday about the rights of women and girls to control their own bodies and be free from male violence.
As Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Population Fund, she addressed the UN General Assembly’s commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the landmark document adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 Cairo Conference, which first recognized that women have the right to control their reproductive capacity. and sexual health – and to choose if and when you want to become pregnant.
Judd called the program of action adopted in Cairo a “glorious, ambitious document” that “has been imprinted on my psyche … (and) has guided my twenty years of travel around the world, attracting considerable attention and exploring the sexual and improved reproductive health and rights. in slums, brothels, refugee and internally displaced persons camps, schools and shelters.”
The Cairo conference changed the focus of the UN Population Fund, known as UNFPA, from numerical targets to promoting choices for individual women and men, and supporting economic development and education for girls. This shift was driven by research showing that well-educated women have smaller families.
While Cairo recognized sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights for women, it did not recognize sexual rights. This happened a year later during the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing.
On one of the most controversial issues at the Cairo conference, delegates recognized that unsafe abortion is something that governments must address as a public health issue to save women’s lives. But the country did not approve abortion as a method of family planning or mention legalization, and thirty years later the issue remains controversial.
Judd recalled some of her trips, including to Madagascar, where she said she spoke to women who were commercially exploited by men. She said they were all compelled to do that work by the same root cause: “The sexual, reproductive, legal, political, social and cultural inequality of girls and women.”
Judd said that last August in Turkey she met both Turkish families and refugees living in tents and containers “with one semi-functioning latrine for hundreds of people.”
Many said they were not in an emotional, mental or physical condition to bring another baby into the world, and Judd expressed gratitude that UNFPA was doing everything it could “to bring modern family planning choices to those who want them, despite the fact that the government their availability in the public sector.”
Judd, Goodwill Ambassador to UNFPA since 2016, emphasized the importance of women being able to choose when to have children and “the ability to say no to sex without retaliation.”
Natalia Kanem, executive director of UNFPA, which now calls itself the United Nations Agency for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, noted at the commemoration the tremendous progress made on the Cairo platform over the past three decades.
Maternal mortality has fallen by a third between 2000 and 2020, the number of women using contraceptives has doubled since 1990, births among adolescents have fallen by a third since 2000 and the number of child marriages has declined globally, she said.
Kanem also pointed out that more than 60 countries are passing legislation against domestic violence, and that criminal laws against LGBTQ+ people are “decreasing faster than ever.”
“And yet today, progress is slowing,” she said. “The annual decline in maternal mortality has leveled off and inequality between and within countries is increasing. And the rights of women, girls and gender diverse people are the subject of increasing pressure.”
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the packed General Assembly chamber that the great progress in three decades has been “masked by those left behind.”
She mentioned many developing countries where infant mortality is still too high and the 164 million women of childbearing age around the world who do not have access to family planning.
“We must remain vigilant and continue to address situations where sexual and reproductive health and rights are being rolled back,” Mohammed said. “We must respond and push back when women’s rights are being eroded.”