Declaration of Women’s and Feminist NGO’s from Latin America and the Caribbean

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

• All states and all people shall cooperate in the essential task of eradicating poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in order to decrease the disparities in the standards of living and better meet the needs of the majority of the people of the world.

• The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet the population, development, and environmental needs of present and future generations.

• Everyone has the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. 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 family is the basic unit of society and as such should be strengthened. It is entitled to receive comprehensive protection and support. In different cultural, political and social systems, various forms of the family exist.

• Countries, with the support of the international community, should protect and promote the rights of adolescents to reproductive health education, information and care…these services must safeguard the rights of adolescents to privacy, confidentiality, respect and informed consent.

• In considering the population and development needs of indigenous people, states should recognize and support their identity, culture and interests, and enable them to participate fully in the economic, political and social life of the country.

• In circumstances where abortion is not against the law, health systems should train and equip health-service providers and should take other measures to ensure that such abortion is safe and accessible. Additional measures should be taken to safeguard women’s health.

• Everyone has the right to education, which shall be directed to the full development of human resources, and human dignity and potential, with particular attention to women and the girl child.

• Mister President and delegates to this Conference, what we have just read is neither the result of a feminist seminar demanding decriminalization of abortion; a lesbian statement regarding sexual rights, nor even an illusive dream of a woman in the favela or the batey [1] . This is none other than the Cairo Program of Action, agreed by our governments and endorsed in Port of Spain and Santiago.

• These are the same commitments that we want enforced in our region, where levels of inequality are the highest of the world and where the economic model continues to generate an external debt, paid for by the exclusion, displacement, and silencing of millions of our people, the majority of whom are women. A region also, that continues to endure blackmail and coercion, in violation of UN principles, and which struggles to defend justice, development and peace. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we want freedom from discrimination, racism, xenophobia and violence.

• For the same reasons, we reaffirm the defense of sovereignty and the separation of Church and State, of democracy and its institutions. We reaffirm the Cairo Program of Action and other international instruments and agreements that strengthen human rights, justice, and the well being of peoples.

• Ten years after ICPD , we must call again on the ethical commitments and the political will indispensable to generating the resources and mechanisms that convert commitments into concrete realities. Women, societies, the whole region and its peoples, deserve that this entire Program of Action be implemented.

Thank you Mister President. Thank you delegates and colleagues.