Working to uphold individual dignity, human rights, and equality
To achieve sustainability, any development agenda, including the emerging Post-2015 Development Agenda, must be underpinned by the fundamental principles of individual dignity, human rights, and equality.
The challenge of sustainability is rooted in empowerment and is achieved by helping all people reach their full potential, with a view to sustaining inclusive economic growth. If our goal is to ensure a sustainable and resilient future, we have a fundamental obligation to commit to the fulfillment of human rights and respect the individual dignity of every person.
The importance of universality, equality, mainstreaming, comprehensiveness, inclusion, solidarity, equity, dignity, and human rights in applying approaches to all vulnerable groups is paramount for eradicating poverty and promoting equitable opportunities in access to livelihoods.
The promotion of gender equality is one of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) work. It is both a key programmatic area and a cross-cutting approach that influences all its interventions. Gender equality emphasizes the importance of ensuring that sexual and reproductive health services take gender aspects into account and in promoting the collection and use of disaggregated data to identify the specific needs of women and girls.
Significant investment in the capacities of children, adolescents, and youth is necessary, while ensuring that all of them, regardless of their circumstances, have access to quality preschool, primary, and secondary education. Alongside this, they must have access to comprehensive sexuality education, defined holistically, which gives them the opportunity to enjoy a rapid, safe, and productive transition from student life to working life and adulthood.
This is why, for several years now, beyond having specialized agencies and a large number of resolutions aimed at drawing the attention of States to their duties in this area, the United Nations has also been promoting the incorporation of a human rights approach into its programming processes and actions.
UNFPA has taken on this mandate and has adopted human rights as a central pillar in its actions, while also developing programs aimed at providing information and training on human rights.
Our Challenge
In Latin America and the Caribbean, our work in Human Rights focuses on advancing gender equality, the empowerment of young people, and reproductive rights, including for the most vulnerable and marginalized women, adolescents, and youth. Vigorous efforts are needed to eliminate discrimination and marginalization and to promote a culture based on respect for all people.
Respect for human rights, on the other hand, is another principle that underpins UNFPA's work. They constitute attributes of the human person by virtue of their being human — inalienable, indivisible, and imprescriptible. Today, their fulfillment represents a fundamental challenge for the international community. The duty of States to guarantee and respect human rights is often unfulfilled, to the detriment of the rights and living conditions of thousands of people.
Another challenge in the region is to ensure that reproductive rights are respected and promoted. These rights comprise a set of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights that protect the freedom of individuals and couples to make informed and autonomous decisions about sexuality and reproduction, and to enjoy their sexual and reproductive health, free from discrimination, coercion, and violence.
One of the fundamental aspects requiring attention is the protection of the human rights of women and girls, eliminating all discriminatory and harmful practices such as early and forced marriage. At the youth level, greater social investment is required, specifically allocated to quality education, employment, and health, in order to promote sustainable development.
The Opportunity
One of the most notable social and economic characteristics of the region has been the incorporation of women into the labor market and public life in general. This has had a positive impact on economic growth, as the opportunities generated by economic dynamics have been leveraged by women's capabilities. Evidently, this process has gone hand in hand with gender parity in education.
The progress women have made in the region is part of a global situation of claiming women's equality by the women's movement and the feminist movement. These movements have also had a strong impact on achieving institutions that promote women's equality. The movement for gender equality has impacted the constitutional and legal frameworks of countries, generating new doctrines in different branches of law, and especially in civil and criminal codes. Health programs have also shifted, incorporating sexual and reproductive health programs, moving beyond maternal-child perspectives and conceiving women in their totality, not just as mothers.
Women's right to decide whether to have children, how many to have, and how far apart, has been one of the determining factors in this emancipation process. However, there are aspects of gender equality that have not always accompanied this process of achieving equality.
There is a problem of co-responsibility in unpaid domestic work, as women have entered the paid workforce but continue to be the primary agents of unpaid work, dedicating significantly more time to it than men. Roles and responsibilities in this area have not changed in parallel with those of women in the market and society. The ECLAC Gender Equality Observatory reports that in some countries in the region, women work up to 26 hours more per week than men.
Our Strategy
Our strategy is based on a multiple approach that includes the participation of local communities, national governments, and international organizations to address the barriers that prevent progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment. UNFPA focuses its work on three areas:
Advocacy and Dialogue on Human Rights at the Governmental Level: This aspect relates to state systems that oversee compliance with human rights obligations and recommendations. Work in this area primarily involves policy advocacy and dialogue, as well as advice and capacity development to promote the establishment and use of these systems, and to support national authorities in monitoring violations of reproductive rights.
In this regard, the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean incorporates a significant line of action into its 2014-2017 Regional Program, primarily aimed at strengthening the capacities of national human rights institutions (ombudspersons' offices or public defenders' offices and human rights commissions) to monitor the fulfillment of rights in the countries of the region. It also supports the implementation of the recommendations of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), formulated by the Human Rights Council to States regarding sexual and reproductive rights.
Gender-Based Violence and Harmful Practices: The particular focus for the Latin American region is on integrating the prevention and care of sexual violence, particularly in sexual and reproductive health services, including in the context of humanitarian assistance programs.
Promotion of Reproductive Rights and Gender Equality: Due to the central role played by civil society and faith-based organizations in promoting reproductive rights and gender equality, UNFPA will support civil society to promote accountability by state institutions on these issues, as well as ensuring that men and boys are engaged in promoting gender equality and addressing their unique SRH needs.
