Civil Society perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the Montevideo Consensus (MC), Fòs Feminista supported 20 CSOs in the creation of national reports that document the progress, gaps, challenges, and best practices in delivering SRHRJ commitments for women, girls and gender-diverse individuals and their different intersections. Moreover, Fòs supported five regional networks led by Afro-descendants, young people, women with disabilities, indigenous women, and transgender people.
Fòs identified five priority topics within SRHRJ: 1) Abortion, 2) Comprehensive Sexuality education, 3) Gender-Based Violence, 4) Family Planning and Contraception and 5) Youth-Friendly Services. A report is available for each of these priority topics and a sixth report highlights the specific challenges faced by Systematically Excluded Communities (SEC) in the region. The report on SEC can be accessed by those seeking a more detailed analysis of the SRHRJ issues faced by SEC, than those outlined in this report. The analysis of each priority topic couers six major areas of assessment: 1) Legal Framework, 2) Financial Framework, 3) Programmatic Framework, 4) Territorial Inequalities, 5) Civil Society participation, and 6) Data Access, Generation and Quality. Each priority topic includes sections for Recommendations and the identification of Best Practices, from both CSOs and national governments. Designed to be adaptable, the framework recognizes the expertise of participating networks and the limitation of publicly available information. This flexibility allowed these networks to identify other priority issues and undertake political analyses tailored to the specific contexts they addressed.
According to MQTM's latest report from 2023, abortion is the SRHRJ issue that continues to face the most challenges in the region. A more 25% of countries have legislation on abortion with a reference to broad 'causales', cases, or complete decriminalization in their legal frameworks. MQTM reports half of the countries lacking appropriate medical resources for pregnancy termination, having specific timeframes for interventions that contribute to barriers in safe abortion practices, and an absence of awareness campaigns. MQTM's data from 2023 provides the compliance percentage for abortion with a focus on five areas: legal framework, operating framework, supplies, service provision, and dissemination campaigns. The overall percentage of compliance to abortion commitments increased by 5%, rising from 38% in 2017 to 43% in 2023. However, country-specific scores exhibit significant variation, with 39% of the 18 monitored countries included in this report, falling into the "deficient" category, registering compliance scores below 40%.
This flexibility allowed these networks to identify other priority issues and undertake political analyses tailored to the specific contexts they addressed.
