Institute of Development Studies

Realising Sexual Rights Event: Sweden Ministry of Foreign Affairs Workshop 2006

• Dates: 19 February 2006 - 24 February 2006

Sexuality, human rights, development. Development agencies hear two of these terms all the time - and the third hardly at all, Annika Söder, Sweden's State Secretary for Development Co-operation, pointed out in her opening remarks to a workshop hosted by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. 'Sexual Rights, Development and Human Rights: Making the Connections' called for greater willingness to explore the links between sexuality and issues at the very heart of the development agenda, Annika Söder made explicit Sweden’s commitment to advancing the pursuit of sexual and reproductive rights for all.

The workshop, initiated by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs' Expert Group on Development Issues (EGDI), brought together senior members of the Swedish government, researchers, practitioners and activists. The right of every person to her or his own sexuality and over her or his own body became Swedish official policy in December 2005. This is the first time a bilateral agency has adopted a policy that specifically addresses sexual and reproductive health and rights. Sweden’s support for the right to abortion and the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is affirmed in the policy, which has far-reaching implications. Sweden now leads the way for other progressive governments to commit to an issue that affects the lives and livelihoods of untold millions of women and men the world over.

Carin Jämtin, Swedish Foreign Minister and Minister for Development Co-operation, affirmed the centrality of sexuality and sexual rights to our very existence as human beings. She argued, 'sexuality lies at the core of human life, of what makes us fully human. It is the key to our capacity to contribute positively and fully to the societies we live in... Issues of sexuality and sexual rights concern everyone’s rights to life and to good health’. Yet there are many people who work in development who find it difficult to understand what sexuality has to do with development.

In a framing paper for the workshop, IDS' Susie Jolly and Brazilian feminist activist Sonia Correa spelt out connections between poverty, inequality and discrimination against women and men who deviate from the norms dictated by their societies. These may include men who are denied the right to love other men by the legislation left in place by the British Empire, the subject of Indian activist and human rights lawyer Sumit Baudh’s presentation. They may include sex workers who are routinely abused by the police, denied access to services and stigmatised as 'prostitutes', people who only come to the attention of development agencies when they migrate for sex work, and become the 'victims' of trafficking, as Jelena Djordjevic of the Serbian Anti-Trafficking Centre illustrated. They may include women who prefer not to have relationships with men, who may or may not identify as lesbian. As Argentinian researcher Alejandra Sarda pointed out, lesbians may find it impossible to hide their sexuality in the workplace, facing the prospect of losing their jobs, or enduring low wages and poor working conditions. And Henry Armas, Peruvian human rights lawyer and director of the NGO GRUPAL, highlighted the current electoral contest in Peru, where the press are singling out an unmarried female presidential candidate for scrutiny, maligning her suitability for office not because she is a woman, but on the grounds that she has never had a husband and children.

The connections between poverty, inequality and sexuality are just as evident for those who follow normative pathways into heterosexual marriage. Women may lose resources when they marry into unequal relationships, and end up vulnerable to marital rape - a crime which is not recognised in many countries. Men suffer from pressures to conform to macho stereotypes, and may be maligned and ostracised if they fail to comply.

Workshop presentations placed some of these realities in context. From Zambia, Ophelia Haanyama Örum shared her own story of recognising that she had sexual rights only after she had two children and had contracted HIV. She reminded the participants that every day young women in Africa are denied their sexual rights. Who, she asked, shall these young women claim their rights from? Their parents? A state that is out of reach and largely unknown to them? She spoke of women who are forced to marry men and are subjected to rape within marriage without any protection from the state. And of women and men denied the opportunity to protect themselves from HIV infection because some funders in the North, particularly in the US think they ought to be abstaining from sex. Kopano Ratele’s analysis of 'ruling masculinities' highlighted the contradictions in South Africa between a progressive constitution and a masculinist political elite, whose retrogressive attitudes speak louder and with more effect than any official policy.

The workshop also heard stories of change. Among the most moving was that of Pinar Ilkkaracan, from the Turkish organization Women for Women’s Human Rights, who told tales of successful mobilisation to bring about changes in Turkey’s penal code and grassroots work with women to enable them to recognise their rights to their own bodies and sexualities. Nike Esiet from the Nigerian organization Action Health International spoke of how efforts to promote sexuality education had resulted in state-wide programmes at primary, secondary and tertiary level. It is these kinds of initiatives that are now under threat in a climate where US and fundamentalist Christian forces collude to deny people the right to information about their bodies and their lives.

As Pinar Illkkaracan pointed out, 'sexuality is not only a personal and private issue, it is also linked to systems of power, politics and domination in society'. It is precisely these linkages between power and politics that development interventions in the name of participation, rights and citizenship seek to transform. And while there is much talk in development about participation, stigmatisation due to your sexual identity or means of pursuing a livelihood can make participation virtually impossible, a fact that is hardly ever mentioned. It is rare enough for gender issues to be taken seriously in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Is there a single PRSP that name measures for addressing the poverty of transgender people, who may have few employment options beyond sex work because of pervasive discrimination? Has any PRSP process included an explicit effort to consult with LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) communities? Henry Armas spelled out the fundamental connections between sexual rights and an entire spectrum of human rights, from the right to life, the right to housing, the right to health. Genuine democratic participation and inclusive citizenship demands, he argued, recognition of these connections and of what it takes to enable those marginalised by sexuality to exercise their right to participate. To do so, Sonia Correa and Susie Jolly argued, calls for an approach that acknowledges violations and harms, but goes beyond a focus on the negative to emphasize a more life-affirming perspective on the positive, pleasurable and fulfilling dimensions of sexuality.

Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, highlighted the absence of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He argued that the struggle against poverty and for human rights depends on explicitly recognising these connections. How might this be done? To break the silence on sexual rights, Paul Hunt advocated a strategy of 'naming without shame'. Human rights advocates have used naming and shaming as a way of drawing attention to what needs to change. But promoting and protecting sexual rights calls for naming sexual rights wherever we see them without shame - and making the connections between sexual rights, human rights and development so evident that no-one can pretend that they don’t exist any longer.

Breaking the silence and emphasing the linkages between sexual rights, human rights and development has taken on a new urgency in the context of the rise of repressive religious injunctions that deprive people of rights over their own bodies and sexualities. In these dangerous times, democratic participation becomes ever more critical, Sonia Correa argued, to open up spaces for conversations about sexuality, and to affirm the centrality of sexual rights to human and economic development. To make this possible, Gita Sen reflected in her summing up remarks, new alliances are needed to bridge old divides between social movements struggling for rights and social justice, alliances that can animate these spaces and build coalitions to make sexual rights real.