On Wednesday, the Higher Population Council, in cooperation with the Higher Council for the Affairs of Persons with Disabilities held a meeting on the reproductive health of persons with disabilities.
Attended by national stakeholders, the meeting overviewed current reproductive health services offered to persons with disabilities, presented recommendations for improving these services and identified the outline of Jordan’s position paper on the reproductive health rights of persons with disabilities.
In her opening remarks, Secretary General of the Higher Population Council, Engineer Maysoon Al Zoubi, said that this meeting is part of HPC’s continuous efforts to support population needs based on the fundamental rights of all members of society.
Al Zoubi highlighted the importance of providing protection for persons with disabilities, safeguarding their right to live with dignity, and observing related international agreements including the Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Al Zoubi added that reproductive and sexual health services for persons with disabilities should be improved and a plan to transition from a disability care perspective to a disability rights perspective should be developed.
“Raising the awareness of the different age groups of persons with disabilities about reproductive health is essential to ensure their protection against exploitation and violence. HPC’s approach towards the sexual and reproductive health of disabled persons is based on their right to access these services and make decisions regarding their reproductive health,” Al Zoubi added.
The Secretary General of the Higher Council for the Affairs of Persons with Disabilities, Dr. Mohannad Al Azzeh, indicated that reproductive health is a key topic as it intersects with a wide spectrum of rights of persons with disabilities, but available studies and research that have thoroughly tackled this topic are limited.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities includes special provisions on reproductive health and reflects global interest in this matter. Similarly, Law No.20 of 2017on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities explicitly stipulates the need to provide accessible reproductive health services for persons with disabilities on equal basis with other members of society.
Reproductive health education and awareness is a self-protection tool for persons with disabilities against abuse and violence. Through comprehensive reproductive health programs, persons with disabilities and their families can be trained in prevention, protection and reporting of all forms of abuse and violence.
During the meeting, participants discussed reproductive health issues and concepts and the link between reproductive health and the demographic dividend. Reproductive health from a legal and human rights perspective was also discussed in addition to the status of productive health of persons with disabilities in Jordan. The meeting emphasized the need to raise awareness of women with disabilities about prenatal, antenatal and postnatal care as well as the need to raise awareness of parents and specialists about reproductive health in general and the protection of children with disabilities against sexual exploitation and all forms of violence.
HPC and the Higher Council for the Affairs of Persons with Disabilities will use the outcomes of this meeting as inputs to develop the outline of Jordan’s position paper on the reproductive and sexual health and rights of persons with disabilities, which will be later embedded in the National Reproductive Health Strategy for 2019-2023 currently being developed by HPC.
