Database • Plan International - Girls' Rights Platform - Girls' rights are human rights: Positioning girls at the heart of the international agenda

Gender perspectives on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment 2016, para. 72b

Paragraph text: [With regard to abuses in health-care settings, the Special Rapporteur calls upon States to:] Decriminalize abortion and ensure access to legal and safe abortions, at a minimum in cases of rape, incest and severe or fatal fetal impairment and where the life or physical or mental health of the mother is at risk;

Body: Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

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Paragraph text: In many States, children born with atypical sex characteristics are often subject to irreversible sex assignment, involuntary sterilization and genital normalizing surgery, which are performed without their informed consent or that of their parents, leaving them with permanent, irreversible infertility, causing severe mental suffering and contributing to stigmatization. In some cases, taboo and stigma lead to the killing of intersex infants.

Body: Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

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Paragraph text: The Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions of Detention in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights noted in a 2001 report on prisons in Malawi that prisons were not safe place for pregnant women, babies and young children and that it was not advisable to separate babies and young children from their mothers. Even very short periods in detention settings can undermine a child's psychological and physical well-being, compromise cognitive development and result in higher rates of suicide, self-harm, mental disorders and developmental problems (A/HRC/28/68). Children living in prison with their mothers may be at heightened risk of suffering violence, abuse and conditions of confinement that amount to torture or ill-treatment. In this context, the imprisonment of pregnant women and women with young children must be reduced to a minimum.

Body: Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

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