No health without rights: women and girls decide – event at the European Development Days ’18

Countdown 2030 Europe will be hosting a panel discussion during the European Development Days entitled “No health without rights: women and girls decide”.

To be empowered, every girl and woman needs to decide and control her body and sexuality. She needs to be able to choose if, when and with whom she wants to engage in safe and healthy sexual relations, and if and when she wants to have children in safe and healthy conditions free of coercion, discrimination and violence. Although at the heart of women’s empowerment and thus of sustainable development, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) are often misunderstood.

This high-level panel at the EDDs will present an evidence-based definition with the new Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on SRHR (European exclusive launch) and will discuss how to ensure a human-rights based approach to the continuum of care for all women and girls, and what the benefits are to do so. You can find out more information about the report here. Speakers include:

• Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development

• Awa Marie Coll Seck, Minister of Health of the Republic of Senegal and member of the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Post-2015 World

• Vlado Mirosevic Verdugo, Member of the Parliament of Chile

• Renate Baehr, Executive Director, Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevoelkerung (DSW)

• Hope Jeremiah Offor, EDDs Young Leader.

Find out more, and register for the EDDs, here.

The event is co-organised with IPPF EN, DSW, UNFPA, Women Deliver, Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.

Location of the event: Auditorium A1, European Development Days, Brussels

June 5, 2018 – 18.00-19.30