GENEVA, Switzerland, Wed. Apr. 14, 2021– This week the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) announced the regional virtual release of their annual State of World Population Report 2021. The theme of this year’s report is, “My body is my own: claiming the rights to autonomy and self-determination,” and this is the UN’s first report dedicated to bodily autonomy. The virtual release, which took place on Wednesday, April 14, focused on people’s “power to say yes, the right to say no, and shows how efforts to address abuse can lead to reduced violation of bodily autonomy at a global level.”
The panel of speakers included Alfonso Barragues, the Deputy Director of the UNFPA, Geneva; and Monica Ferro, the Director of UNFPA, Geneva. Ferro opened the presentations by citing the experiences of women and girls in various countries of the world who do not have the power to make decisions regarding marriage, the use of contraceptives, abortion etc. The presentation also highlighted the ways in which people are stripped daily of their bodily autonomy through arranged marriages, violent acts against people of various sexual orientations, prostitution, illegal sex trafficking and more. During her presentation, Ferrero also mentioned the importance of body autonomy, not just for women, but for the world at large:
“A woman who is in control of her body is more likely to be empowered in other spheres of her life. She gains not only in terms of autonomy, but also through advances in health and education and common safety. She is more likely to thrive, and so is her family. When we see these benefits across whole societies, we understand that communities and countries will flourish when all people are empowered to make their own informed choices about their bodies and their futures. A different path starts with rights and leads to choices, allowing people to care for and live their lives as they see fit. Realizing autonomy well help us realize a world of greater justice and women’s well-being, which benefits us all.”
The UNFPA had been collecting data for this topic since 2019, and in February of 2020 they published the first analysis of that data. Between the drafting of the report and its presentation on Wednesday, the UNFPA Geneva had collected information from seventy-five countries, which they feel gives them a clear enough depiction of bodily autonomy right violations globally.