Initiative: Celebrating International Women’s Day!

The International Women’s Day is Tuesday, March 8th, just one week away. This week, representatives from around the world are gathering in New York for an important meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The meeting will take stock of the progress that has been made - or not - towards the worldwide advancement of women. Delegates will review the promises governments made ten years ago at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, and measure how well those promises have been kept.

Please help us make the most of this unique opportunity for "global accountability" by contacting UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to urge him to make women’s sexual and reproductive rights and health a top priority in the UN’s global plan for economic and social development. Click here to send your message to Kofi Annan now.

It has been 30 years since the first World Conference on Women was held in Mexico City, and much has changed. Unfortunately, despite some improvements, women around the world are still facing the same challenges:

 Violence against women remains a serious problem that knows no borders.
 Many women still do not have the right or the means to choose the number and spacing of their children.
 Lack of access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health care, counseling, and supplies endangers the lives of women around the world.

In Beijing the world acknowledged that women’s rights were central to development and peace and that women’s rights are human rights.

But women’s rights can’t be advanced without ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive rights and health. The two go hand in hand.

Click here to send an email calling on Kofi Annan to make women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights a specific target of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

Your input will have the biggest impact this week, while the UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting is going on and Secretary-General Annan is writing his report on how to proceed.

Once you’ve sent your message, please forward this message to your friends and ask them to join you and women around the world in celebrating International Women’s Day by speaking up for women’s health and rights.

Thanks again for all your help,

Eve Fox
Campaign Manager
International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region
FreeChoiceSavesLives.org

International Planned Parenthood Federation Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR) works to ensure wide access to quality, affordable reproductive health care for women and men throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and advocates for their right to choose the number and spacing of their children. Working through 46 member associations, IPPF/WHR provides contraceptive counseling and supplies, HIV prevention, testing and treatment, maternal and infant health care, and comprehensive sex education to people in need.