Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) aim to strengthen women's rights to their own bodies and physical integrity. This includes maternal health, the right to legal and safe abortions as well as access to and the possibility of using contraceptives. SRHR also aim to highlight the rights of homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals whose rights are globally violated every day while homosexual acts are still criminal offenses in more than 85 countries.
Millennium Development Goal 5 strives for improved maternal health and is the goal furthest from being reached by 2015. Maternal mortality as a measure is very uncertain and the number of unrecorded cases is very large particularly in the poorest parts of the world. 50 per cent of the deaths occur in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The foremost causes of deaths in these countries are the lack of professional help during childbirth and unsafe abortions. In some countries south of the Sahara unsafe abortions comprise up to 30-40 per cent of deaths. Although the Beijing Declaration specifically calls for a review of punitive abortion laws, the incidence of unsafe abortions has not declined since it was adopted in 1995.
Sexual education prevents HIV and unwanted pregnancies
The right to education also includes the right to sexual education. Sexual education is also a method of preventing HIV, AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, and should always be based from a rights perspective. In Latin America the situation varies significantly in different countries. Most countries in southeast Asia have a policy for sexual education. In Africa, however, a number of countries do not conduct any planned sexual education of any kind. However the existence of sexual education in the school curriculum differs in quality depending on the country.
HIV and AIDS are some of the most important barriers against development in Africa south of the Sahara thereby negatively affecting gender equality in many ways. Women and girls often have the responsibility of taking care of infected family members, which for one thing affects their attendance at school. Powerful efforts with regard to Millennium Development Goal 6 - to stop the spreading of HIV, AIDS and other infectious diseases - have helped reduce the world’s HIV population from 3.5 million in 1996 to 2.7 million in 2005.
