Women's Reproductive Rights in Developing Countries

Vijayan K Pillai, Guang-Shen Wang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429783142
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

First published in 1999, this volume represents an empirical model of reproductive rights in developing countries. The model encompasses three explanations of reproductive rights. The first proposes that reproductive rights levels are negatively related to population growth. The second explanation argues that gender equality has a positive effect on reproductive rights. Finally, the authors propose that women's education has a positive effect on reproductive rights. The empirical model takes into account the effects of modernization, secularization, and family planning program effort on population growth, women's education, and gender equality.

1 Introduction

Perhaps one of the most publicized political and social issues of this decade is the issue of women's reproductive rights. A number of social and political phenomena have played a catalytic role in the emergence and current visibility of women's reproductive rights. The most noteworthy among them is the political prominence of humans rights groups and organizations. Since the establishment of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in 1946, the international community has adopted treaties and recommendations to promote women's rights in political, economic, civil, and social fields. It was not until the recent decades that the right to make reproductive decisions was recognized as a fundamental human right. The population control movements in some developing countries have contributed to the current visibility of women's reproductive rights as a social issue. Reproductive rights include the rights such as the right to decide on the starting, spacing, and stopping of fertility. The basic right to decide on the spacing and number of children may not be taken for granted universally even today. The control over resources to make these reproductive decisions is a key aspect of reproductive rights.

The population control movement is characterized by an emphasis on achieving demographic targets. These targets are often aimed at an improvement in two quantifiable ends: the number of potential births averted and the number of contraceptive users. The strategies for achieving these targets in some developing countries have resulted in numerous violations of women's individual rights and have compromised women's health (Correa, 1994). Family planning programs in Puerto Rico between 1950 and 1970 sterilized without their knowledge a large number of poor women who could not afford private medical care. Mass protests from women against this program led to its abandonment (Correa, 1994).

Birth control programs in developing countries have spawned two major issues: one concerned with the violation of human rights, in particular women's reproductive rights, and the other with an increase in reproductive health risks. The public reaction against an increase in reproductive health risks and violation of rights has been channeled through women's organizations. These organizations have publicized reproductive rights issues in order to bring about improvements in women's reproductive rights.

The growing relevance of reproductive rights in the designing of social service delivery systems has raised controversies. In the main, two conflicting approaches toward providing services, specifically birth control services, have emerged. One is based on the belief that birth control services should be grounded on enabling women to achieve voluntary fertility control. The other approach considers voluntary fertility as a relative concept. The absolute right to have as many children as a woman desires is hardly applicable to poor countries, where the levels of socioeconomic development do not provide resources necessary for women to negotiate rights, at least in the short run.

The two approaches to reproductive rights have spurred human rights debates at international conferences and conventions such as the Vienna conference (the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights) and the Cairo conference (the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development). Despite the lack of agreement on how to secure and promote reproductive rights, the Fourth World Conference on Women held in September 1995 in Beijing defined women's reproductive rights as the right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children free from political and religious persecution. Women's reproductive rights also include the right to have control over their sexuality and reproductive behavior.

Another source of support for reproductive rights stems from the current programs and policies of the women's health movement, specifically as related to reproductive health. The international women's health movement which started in the late 1970s has called into question several features of current population control programs. The international women's health movement challenges the notion that individual well-being may be compromised for the larger goal of attaining population control. In addition, the health movement has questioned social policies that have failed to promote women's reproductive health. Reproductive health is defined as a state of complete well-being with respect to having a safe and satisfying sex life. Reproductive rights are an important aspect of reproductive health. These rights provide women and men the ability to decide the number and timing of births, as well as the access to services necessary to implement fertility decisions. Women's ability to make and implement decisions is a crucial determinant of their health.

At the core of the women's health movement is the claim that every woman has the right to have control over her body, her sexuality, and her reproductive life. DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), an advocacy agency, speaks for women:

Control over reproduction is a basic need and a basic right for all women. Linked as it is to women's health and social status, as well as the powerful social structures of religion, state control and administrative inertia, and private profit, it is from the perspective of poor women that this right can best be understood and affirmed. (Sen and Grown, 1987, p.49)

The presence of the three ideologies and practices; family planning, human rights, and women's health, clearly have implications for women's reproductive rights. The proponents of these ideologies seek an empirical understanding of the social and structural basis of women's reproductive rights. The goal of the study is to investigate the social-structural determinants of the levels of women's reproductive rights in developing countries at the nation-state level.

Human Rights, Women’s Rights, and Reproductive Rights

International human rights is the first universal ideology (Weissbrodt, 1988). Human rights refer to a loosely organized set of formal and informal rules, codes, and norms which protect individuals against groups and organizations that threaten the survival and dignity of persons. Human rights are universal in scope and also transcend the political tendency to limit the enjoyment of rights based on ascriptive and achieved criteria such as gender, race, and social class. These rights are based on the notion that all human beings are equal and therefore have an equal right to enjoy dignity and security. Rights and freedoms are seen as indivisible. That is, some rights cannot be suppressed in order to promote other rights. A human rights agenda provides the foundation for respecting minority status and ethnic and cultural diversity, and it reinforces the obligations every person has to create a humane physical and social environment for the current as well as future generations of citizens. Rights form the foundation for social action, policy, and reform.

In developing countries, threats against personal security, human rights, and dignity stem from fast changes in social, economic, and political institutions left behind by long periods of European colonization. Almost all developing countries occupy a peripheral role in the modern world economic system. The exploitation of workers on the periphery, particularly women and children, by the core countries worsens the situation of the poor and disadvantaged. In addition, deep social inequalities resulting from marketization and globalization of economies have created a new class of economically and politically powerful elites. This increases the vulnerability of the poor and the powerless in the hands of the elites in developing countries, resulting in an increase in human rights violations. Given the widespread prevalence of authoritarian regimes, socioeconomic inequality, and ethnic conflicts in the developing countries, rights such as the right to life, right to democracy, right to ethnic identity, right to social justice, and the rights of vulnerable groups have become dispensable. The concern about human rights violations has been brought to global attention through several international conventions on human rights. The international vision of human rights has been codified in a number of documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and other United Nations declarations. These declarations describe the scope and meaning of a few fundamental rights.

Among the most vulnerable groups in developing countries are women, children, workers and peasants, disabled persons, and political prisoners. Perhaps one of the most conspicuous social categories which has been historically and universally discriminated against is women. Charlesworth (1995) argues that human rights are inherently biased against women. This is due to the fact that human rights are defined, targeted, and implemented for those who participate in the public spheres of the society and the economy. The discrimination and mistreatment that women suffer in the private sphere, at the family level, are not considered appropriate for intervention by human rights groups and activists.

Charlesworth (1995) points out that women as a group have in many respects been excluded in the discourses of the three generations of human rights. The first generation of rights lays emphasis on civil and political rights. These rights protect men. In particular, in developing countries, the political participation of women is very low. Women's low status in developing countries posses a serious risk to the enjoyment of rights and well-being because resource allocations within the family favor sons and elderly males.

The second generation of rights includes economic, social, and cultural rights. These rights guarantee equal pay for equal work for both men and women. The definition of work, however, does not include the work women do at home. This renders the second generation of rights essentially meaningless for women.

The third generation of rights focuses on group rights. These rights protect the rights of groups. Economic development in developing countries has to an extent eroded the status of women in the public sphere (Hartmann, 1987). This has led to the invisibility of women as a social group. The deterioration that women have faced in their health, educational, and economic status has neither been adequately addressed nor made a focus of concern by human rights declarations (Charlesworth, 1995).

The primary basis for women's rights rests on the fact that women are treated universally different from men. Women are at risk because they are women. The specific social and economic conditions that lead to gender-related risks have not been adequately addressed by current human rights declarations. The social stigma attached to rape in some developing countries keeps raped women from reporting rape. In many developing countries women do not enjoy the same legal status as men. Women are at risk in custody; they are very likely to be raped. Women are more likely to receive harsh punishments for status offenses than men.

The lower status of women within the family is a primary cause of widespread public apathy toward granting equal rights for women and men. Within the household the ability to make fertility decisions affects other rights such as, the right to use contraceptives. More recently, these very gender-related vulnerabilities that women suffer in general have drawn international attention.

The 1993 United Nations Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna marked a turning point in the struggle for women's rights. The effort to divert attention to women's rights bore results when the conference addressed women's rights agendas as a related yet separate aspect of human rights. Women's rights are based on the view that a large share of human rights is essentially women's rights. Thus, the women's rights movement is characterized as a civil rights movement. Consider violence against women and birth control. Issues such as violence against women and the freedom to use birth control have long been considered family issues to be resolved by either family members or social workers. These problems have historically been addressed by women's organizations locally and regionally.

The forcing of this issue to an international level as an integral aspect of women's ability to preserve bodily integrity is an important achievement. Human rights are no longer seen merely as those issues that can effectively be controlled by the state using its police and military powers. International agencies and the state now bear the responsibilities to address women's rights and to ensure women citizens protection from oppression and injustice originating from gender discrimination and social inequalities. The women's rights movement has been able to reshape thinking about human rights, specifically in that human rights may not be divorced from the primary institution of the family.

The Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 is among the most recent efforts at addressing women's rights as human rights. The conference concluded with hard-hitting recommendations advocating sexual freedom and denouncing violence against women.

The major recommendations made by the conferences are as follows: a) women have the right to decide freely all matters related to sexuality and childbearing; b) the systematic rape of women in wartime is a crime and must be immediately stopped; c) children have the right to privacy when receiving health information, and children's rights must be viewed against parental rights; d) the representation of women in political and economic institutions must increase; e) governments should guarantee women equal rights to inherit, although they may not necessarily inherit the same amount as sons in every instance; f) within the family women should not suffer discrimination because they are mothers; and g) marital rape, genital mutilation of girls, domestic battering, and sexual harassment at work must be considered as human rights violations. These recommendations are broad-based and include measures to protect women's reproductive rights.

The first formal declaration of reproductive rights took place at the 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights in Teheran, Iran. Reproductive rights were defined as the rights of parents to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of children and the right to access and consume information and social services necessary to implement reproductive decisions. The World Population Plan of Action adopted in Bucharest six years later reaffirmed the right of couples and individuals to reproductive decision making.

All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so; the responsibility of couples and individuals in the exercise of this right takes into account the needs of their living and future children, and their responsibilities toward the community. (United Nations, 1974)

The International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 and the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women upheld the view that reproductive rights are human rights to be respected and guarded crossnationally despite religious and cultural differences (Correa and Petchesky, 1994). Reproductive rights are defined as the rights of couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children, the right to be educated and informed in this matter, and the right to have control over their bodies. The definition of reproductive rights is broad-based in two respects. First, rights belong to all couples and individuals. Second, rights extend to all aspects, including those of control over bodies. Appendix A presents the chronology of the definitions of reproductive rights as adopted by world conferences and conventions during the last three decades.

The Objectives of the Study

This book examines the social-structural influences on the levels of women's reproductive rights. Using data from 101 developing countries,¹ wetestacausal model of reproductive rights.

This study attempts to lay a foundation for a sociological approach toward understanding the phenomenon of reproductive rights cross-nationally. The scope is limited to a cross-national analysis of developing countries. This decision was made because developed countries, mostly Western nations, share several socioeconomic and political characteristics, such as the presence of stable democracies and capitalistic market economies. The social, economic, and political context in which women's rights are realized in developed nations differs widely from the social, economic, and political characteristics of developing nations.

Ongoing debates on women's reproductive rights heighten the need for empirical research and theoretical explanations. Few studies have tested a causal model of women's reproductive rights. Sjoberg and Vaughan (1993) state that American sociologists have ignored the issue of rights, which has far-reaching cross-national and cross-cultural significance. This is a field in which sociologists are well equipped to make theoretical and empirical contributions.

Since the 1960s, there has been little research on the relationship between law, and social organizations, and social policies (Black, 1976; Benda-Beckmann, 1989; Simon and Lynch, 1989). Sociologists have seldom examined the role that social-structural factors play in determining the levels of reproductive rights in developing countries. Rights are institutionalized as legal norms. Sociologists often use norms to explain social phenomena. Normative attributes are treated as preconditions. Turner (1993) states that sociologists in general have ignored the issue of rights.

Several developing countries are currently attempting to develop policies and programs related to women's reproductive health. An understanding of the social and economic correlates of reproductive rights is necessary to formulate sound policies for reproductive health programs. In fact, the level of reproductive health in developing countries is low. The various sources of risks which threaten the enjoyment of reproductive health in developing countries remain obscure. However, it is not known that the common sources of these risks lie in societal factors, such as lack of conjugal power among women, illiteracy, and low levels of social and economic development (United Nations, 1996). The extent of reproductive illness among women in developing countries today is indicative of the low levels of reproductive rights among women. The need to address the issue of reproductive rights in developing countries is immediate and pressing. This is evident from a cursory survey of the reproductive health problems that women face on a daily basis in developing countries.

The social forces which mold the reproductive rights movement today broadly stem from three related sources. Women's health and population control movem...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 State Population Control Policies and Reproductive Rights
• 3 Value Systems and Reproductive Rights
• 4 Women's Health Movements and Reproductive Rights
• 5 Overview of Rights in Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theories
• 6 Explanations of Reproductive Rights
• 7 Methodology
• 8 Analyses and Results
• 9 Post Hoc Modeling of Women's Reproductive Rights
• 10 Discussion and Conclusion
• References
• Appendices
• Index