We are constantly monitoring the root causes of the obstacles hindering people from claiming their sexual and reproductive rights and exercising their right to free, safe abortion and we always place all of these rights within a human rights framework. This September we will continue our monitoring work on an international level with a mobility event on the week of the 28th of September – International Safe Abortion Day – when we will be hosting activists from Poland, Portugal and Italy in Palermo and analyse to what degree citizens’ sexual and reproductive rights are being (dis)respected in each country. We strongly believe that exchanging good practices in grassroots activism advocating sexual and reproductive rights is extremely fruitful: it allows activists to unite forces across their local and national contexts and create resounding changes across society. During this international event we will closely investigate: the causes for the intense lack of sex education for young people; the media narratives surrounding abortion; the way abortion is represented in the media; the general public’s awareness and perception of abortion; and access to this right and service. We will also develop a tool to share across our communities that helps identify fake news and misinformation about sexual and reproductive rights. This tool will seek to respond to the work of anti-choice organisations who use fake news to dissuade people from having abortions. The event will also be an opportunity for us to collectively plan and develop a festival on sexual health and reproductive rights issues that we will host next year in Palermo.
If you want to take part in this international event as an activist, journalist or simply as someone who is interested in these issues, please contact us at e.esini@maghweb.org
My body is my own is a project that is being implemented by Maghweb, Rede Jovens (Portugal) and AWA (Poland) in the framework of the European ‘Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme’.