A/HRC/RES/39/10
acceptability and quality, on the basis of non-discrimination and formal and substantive
equality, including by addressing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination,
Deeply concerned that there are continuing violations of the right of everyone to the
enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual
and reproductive health, which have a negative impact on rates of maternal mortality and
morbidity, and that the full enjoyment of this right remains a distant goal for many women
and girls throughout the world,
Recognizing that violations of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive health,
such as inadequate emergency obstetric services and unsafe abortion, can cause high levels
of maternal morbidity, including obstetric fistula, leading to ill health and death for women
and girls of childbearing age in many regions of the world, and particularly in humanitarian
settings, and that a dramatic and sustainable scaling up of quality treatment and health-care
services, including high-quality emergency obstetric services and also of the number of
trained, competent fistula surgeons and midwives, is needed to significantly reduce
maternal and new-born mortality and to eradicate obstetric fistula,
Recognizing also that humanitarian settings may exacerbate pre-existing patterns
and structures of discrimination and inequalities and further undermine access to health
care, information and services, housing, water, sanitation, education and employment for
women and girls, and that in affected areas access to essential services, such as health-care
services, including sexual and reproductive health-care services, is disrupted owing to
inadequate infrastructure, lack of professional health-care workers, basic medicines and
health-care supplies and survivor-centred referral pathways for all survivors of sexual and
gender-based violence,
Recognizing further that, in humanitarian settings, disintegrating judicial systems,
gender-based discrimination and discrimination against refugees in host countries, fear of
reprisals against their families or themselves, and the stigma associated with sexual and
gender-based violence all prevent women and girl survivors of sexual and gender-based
violence and those denied access to sexual and reproductive health-care services from
reporting sexual violence and seeking justice, accountability and remedies for the violations
they have endured,
Deeply concerned that women and girls living in humanitarian settings are
disproportionately exposed to a high risk of violation of their rights, including through
trafficking, sexual and gender-based violence, systematic rape, sexual slavery, forced
sterilization, forced pregnancy, harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriage,
and lack of accessible and appropriate sexual and reproductive health-care services,
evidence-based information and education, including comprehensive sexuality education
consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, lack of access to perinatal care,
including skilled birth attendance, and emergency obstetric care, poverty,
underdevelopment, all types of malnutrition, lack of access to medicines and medical
equipment, human and material shortages facing health-care systems, humanitarian and
funding shortages affecting hospitals, technical assistance, capacity-building and training
needs, and lack of access to water and sanitation, resulting in heightened risks of unwanted
pregnancies, unsafe abortion and maternal mortality and morbidity,
Reaffirming that human rights include the right to have control over and to decide
freely and responsibly on matters relating to sexuality, including sexual and reproductive
health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, and that equal relationships in matters
of sexual relations and reproduction, including full respect for dignity, integrity and bodily
autonomy, require mutual respect, consent and shared responsibility for sexual behaviour
and its consequences,
Recognizing that there are large disparities in maternal mortality and morbidity rates
between countries, but also within countries, and between women and girls facing multiple
and intersecting forms of discrimination, and noting with concern that the risk of maternal
mortality is higher for adolescents and highest for adolescent girls under 15 years of age,
and that complications in pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among
adolescent girls in developing countries, which creates the need to address all social,
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