A Decade After Cairo Women’s Health in a Free Women’s Health in a Free Market Economy Market Economy

Publisher: The Corner House and Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, 2004

Status – CURRENT

This briefing first summarises the actions of several women’s groups to influence the outcome of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development and evaluates with hindsight some of the successes and failures of the Programme of Action. It goes on to assess four processes that affect women’s reproductive and sexual rights and health: • The decline and collapse in health services in many countries and their consequences for women’s access to reproductive health services; • The negative impacts of neo-liberal economic policies on women’s health generally; • The restriction of women’s rights due to such policies in combination with religious fundamentalisms; and • The assault on women’s reproductive and sexual health due to development policies underpinned by neo-Malthusianism.