Sexual and reproductive health and rights for all in Southeast Asia: more than SDGs aspirations

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the proclaimed vision of leaving no one behind are lauded for their transformative potential in redressing inequalities. Yet, too few are interrogations of the root causes and underpinning structures that keep uneven development in place. This paper reflects on this omission in relation to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) drawing on over three decades of professional experience in advancing SRHR enriched by literature sources. Engaging with the theme of the 9th Asia-Pacific Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Conference – Leave NO ONE Behind! Justice in Sexual and Reproductive Health, it asks what it would take to realise the pledge of universal access to SRH services and rights. With a focus on Southeast Asia, the paper offers an account of context-specific drivers of disparity and exclusion that preclude the attainment of comprehensive SRHR for all, and especially for stigmatised and marginalised groups. It then discusses the paradigm shift that needs to occur if the ideals of inclusiveness and equity as promised by the SDGs are to be attained in and through SRHR.

Keywords:

• SRHR
• gender
• SDGs
• Southeast Asia
• equity

Notes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In this paper, I follow the UN terminology of ‘inequality’ as the condition of being unequal, although ‘inequity’ would have been more appropriate to stress the injustice or unfairness intrinsic in such being.

2 The author was the Chair of the International Committee of the conference and an early version of this paper was given as the key-note speech at the conference.

3 Among other roles the author served as a gender and SRH program officer in the Ford Foundation’s Jakarta and Manila offices, as regional director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Southeast Asia Office in Bangkok, as a senior health adviser to AusAid, and as regional director for Southeast and East Asia at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Singapore.

4 The GINI coefficient ranges from 0 as perfect equality to 1 as perfect inequality. Thus, a higher GINI coefficient indicates a less equitable distribution of income.