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SARAJEVO, July 8 (FENA) - The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) co-chairs the Action Coalition for Physical Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights with the French Embassy in BiH, launched today in Sarajevo in cooperation with the BiH Gender Equality Agency and UN Women.
The action coalition will work to ensure that all girls, adolescents and women have free access to comprehensive information, education and services in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and that their families and society support them in making their own decisions about their bodies, sexuality and reproduction without coercion, violence and discrimination.
According to the report on the state of the world's population, according to UNFPA Representative in BiH John Kennedy Mosoti, about 50 percent of girls, i.e. minors and women worldwide, which goes for BiH as well, do not have complete control over physical autonomy or their own sexual and reproductive health and rights. Denial of this fundamental human right prevents them from growing up and realizing their full potential.
"We will work on changing cultures that derogate the rights of women and minor girls, we will work on investments to expand the domain of women's and minors' rights related to family planning, use of contraception and more. We will provide full support to the authorities at all levels to enable girls and women to reach their full potential. We will also establish strong cooperation with all organizations and networks of women, girls, feminists in order to improve physical autonomy, as well as sexual and reproductive health and the rights of women and girls," said the UNFPA representative.
The Ambassador of the Republic of France to BiH, Christine Toudic, emphasized the equality and autonomy of women as one of the priorities.
"Our country is among those that have made a lot of progress in that area, but there are still a lot of things to do and President Emmanuel Macron is strongly engaged in that issue. Equality between women and men is one of the guiding ideas of France's foreign policy and action, and in that sense, back in 2007, France adopted a certain strategy on this matter," said Toudic.
She reminded that the "Generation for Equality" Forum was held in Paris last week, whose recommendations are the foundation of the Action Coalition for Physical Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. The Ambassador stated that the Forum succeeded, but it remains to confirm the compliance of the obligations set by the participants and the concrete implementation on the ground.
"It is important to emphasize that all participants in the Forum have committed themselves to the amount of 40 billion dollars that they will use to achieve this goal. Strong commitments have been made regarding physical autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights, which will empower women and girls, in their diversity, to make autonomous decisions about their body, sexuality and reproduction," added Ambassador Toudic.
According to the Director of the BiH Agency for Gender Equality Samra Filipović-Hadžiabdić, BiH has joined the global movement 'Generations for Equality', which aims to practically initiate activities of the Beijing Declaration and the Beijing Conference, which set goals and structure 25 years ago and to introduce new generations that will take over activism and the fight for gender equality.
She stated that the Action Coalition for Physical Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights is the first joint coalition to be launched in BiH.
The UN Women Representative in BiH David Saunders said that it was agreed at the Generation for Equality Forum to achieve gender equality by taking concrete actions s that will help improve the rights of young girls and women by 2026.
"This is one of the three action coalitions that will be launched in BiH this year. An action program will be established for the next five years and partnerships will also be established that will work courageously in the coming period and years to achieve full gender equality. The goal is to achieve gender equality for this generation," Saunders said.
(FENA) S. R.
