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Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights – Malta

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Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights – Malta About The Foundation Women’s Rights Foundation (WRF) is a voluntary organisation committed to informing, educating and empowering women concerning their legal rights. WRF aims to ensure that women’s rights are protected through policy and law reform, raise awareness and offer training to end violence against women. WRF also provides free legal advice and initial legal representation to women who are survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and discriminated against due to their gender. Training to individuals and organisations on issues related to women’s rights is also provided and can be customised on request. This Position Paper was produced by Women's Rights Foundation Malta Written by Dr.Lara Dimitrijevic (founder) & Dr.Andreana Dibben. Further editing was done by other members of the Foundation. Designed by Proteus Malta Ltd. Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce material from issues of this Position Paper in their own publication. In return, WRF requests due acknowledgement and quotes to be referenced as above. © Womens Rights Foundation 2018 Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction 4 A Rights-Based Approach 5 A National Plan 7 Comprehensive sexuality education 8 Conctraception & Family Planning 11 Access to Safe + Legal Abortion 14 References 17 Executive Summary Women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are recognised worldwide as a priority health issue. Women are more likely to fall victims to sexual violence, make decisions on contraceptive use and carry sole responsibility for pregnancy. This paper advocates for all women and girls in Malta to have access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and explores areas through which good sexual and reproductive health can be achieved. Since Women’s Rights Foundation is a rights-based organisation, this paper follows a rights based approach and gives recommendations pertaining to the following areas: 1. A National Action Plan for Sexual and Reproductive Health 2. Comprehensive sexuality education with gender equality and human rights at its core 3. Contraception and family planning 4. Access to safe and legal abortion 1 The following recommendations are being put forward: Recommendation 1: Revise the National Sexual Health Strategy to reflect legal and societal changes occurring since 2011. A National Action Plan needs to be developed with clear responsibilities, timelines and measures of monitoring and evaluation to ensure accountability and quality standards in services. Actions should be assessed on the basis of structural, process and outcome indicators using the AAAQ approach (availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality). The development and implementation of this Action Plan needs to involve stakeholders from different fields and maximise participation of civil society and citizens. Knowledge platforms are recommended to place more emphasis on sharing and documenting knowledge through interdisciplinary dialogues. Recommendation 2: Develop family, school and community-based sexuality education and awareness raising programmes and strategies that place gender equality and human rights at the centre and use methods that foster participation and critical thinking. It is important to ensure that information provided is accurate, evidence-based and tackles and dispels myths and misconceptions. Recommendation 3: Enable access to sexual and reproductive health services through a number of community-based clinics that provide services that are gender and age appropriate and that further conduct outreach for marginalised groups. The provision of sexuality education and SRH services should be closely linked and their delivery should be combined with efforts to build awareness and acceptance for their provision among gatekeepers. Such services need to be monitored and evaluated and staff need to be provided with regular, specialised, and evidence-based training. 2 Recommendation 4: Eliminate practical, financial and legal restrictions on the provision of contraceptives especially for young people and persons on low income. Subsiding contraception should be considered as a public health investment and should be extended for all brands and methods of modern contraception. Requirements for third-party authorisation that impede access to contraception for adolescents under the age of 16 should be removed. People should have access to contraception services at times, and in places, that are convenient to them. Recommendation 5: Guarantee the practical availability of a wide range of contraceptives including LARCs (e.g. implants, patch and injection) which are currently only available from certain pharmacies on a named patient basis. Recommendation 6: Decriminalise abortion so that Maltese women who access abortion in other countries or through telemedicine do not face criminal proceedings and risk three years imprisonment especially when accessing local health services for possible post-abortion complications. Recommendation 7: Provide access to safe and legal abortion to all women in Malta through the public health system and licensed private providers at least in the following circumstances: a. To save a woman's life; b. To preserve a woman's physical and mental health; c. In cases of rape or incest; d. In cases of severe fatal foetal impairment. 3 Introduction Sexual and reproductive health and characteristics (such as single-parent rights are fundamental to individuals, households), community characteristics couples, and families, and to the social (such as ethnicity) or societal and economic development of characteristics (such as poverty or communities and nations. Various homelessness). Marginalised women are international bodies (United Nations, more likely to experience health and WHO, Lancet Guttmacher Commission, social problems and less likely to obtain Council of Europe) have claimed that preventive and curative health services. access to high-quality, affordable sexual and reproductive health services Key global initiatives, including the and information, including a full range Sustainable Development Goals and the of contraceptive methods, is Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s fundamental to realizing the rights and and Adolescents’ Health, call for well-being of women and girls, men and universal access to family planning boys (WHO, 2018). services as a right of women and girls and as crucial to a healthy life (WHO, When it comes to women, reproductive 2018). control is central to their health and autonomy, and where services are inadequate, cost in health, life and personal freedom can be enormous. Some women may be further marginalised because of individual characteristics (such as disability or sexual orientation), family 4 A Rights-Based Approach A rights-based approach recognises that women have the right to self- determination, privacy, consent, information and to make decisions about their health and their lives. Malta is signatory to a number of international treaties and laws that have enshrined women’s sexual and reproductive rights. The International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (1994) establishes that: Reproductive rights “embrace certain Sexual and reproductive health is “a human rights that are already state of complete physical, mental and recognized in national laws, social wellbeing, not merely the absence international laws and international of disease or infirmity, in all matters human rights documents and other relating to the reproductive system and consensus documents. These rights rest to its functions and processes. Sexual on the recognition of the basic rights of and reproductive health therefore all couples and individuals to decide implies that people are able to have a freely and responsibly the number, satisfying and safe sex life and that they spacing and timing of their children and have the capacity to reproduce and the to have the information and means to freedom to decide if, when and how do so, and the right to attain the highest often to do so. Implicit in this last standard of sexual and reproductive condition are: the rights of men and health. It also includes the right to make women to be informed, have access to decisions concerning reproduction free safe, effective, affordable and of discrimination, coercion and violence, acceptable methods of family planning as expressed in human rights including methods for regulation of documents.” fertility, which are not against the law; and the right of access to appropriate health care services to enable women to have a safe pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant” 5 The ICPD PoA contains a range of a right to ‘decide the number and spacing thematic issues that together constitute of their children and to have access to the a comprehensive approach to SRHR. information, education and means to These include: a satisfying sex life, enable them to exercise these rigths’ capability to reproduce, the freedom to (CEDAW, Article 16) decide if, when and how often to reproduce, information and counselling, Adolescence has been given special appropriate health care services, family attention by international bodies working in planning and sexual health. the area of SRHR. In 2012, the Commission on Population and Development in its final The Beijing Declaration and its Platform resolution emphasised the following points: for Action (1995) further recognises that human rights of women are a. The right of young people to fundamental
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