This statement was delivered by the Federation for Women and Family Planning during the 44th session of the Human Rights Council.
Watch the presentation of the statement
We welcome the report of the WG on Women’s human rights in the changing world of work and strongly advocate for the recommendations included in the report to be taken seriously by the member states.
Referring to the 2018 WG’s visit in Poland, the Federation wishes to evidence that the Polish government not only fails to implement the WG’s recommendations following from the visit but acts in opposition to these, especially in terms of access to SRHR.
The latest months in the Polish Parliament show how blatantly Poland is departing from the standards of women’s and girls’ rights protection. In the midst of pandemic, Polish parliament debated the two draft bills aiming at quasi total ban of abortion and sexuality education. In June the President of Poland signed the crisis related package of laws which includes the changes to criminal code and introduces restrictions to the penalties for crimes related to abortion. The amendment to another law which aims at the removal of the referral obligation by the hospital where doctors rely on consciousness clause is a current subject of a parliamentary debate too. There is a serious risk that this law will be adopted in the coming weeks. These initiatives have nothing to do with the crisis management.
We call on the WG to consider the matter urgent and exercise pressure on the Polish Parliament to reject all the legislative initiatives which further restrict women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive rights and services.
