IPPF EN attends the 2008 World Health Organization Regional Committee for Europe

Public Health Officials from the 53 Member States in the WHO European Region came together for the 58th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe that took place in Tbilisi, Georgia on 15-18 September 2008.

Discussions included the implementation of the recently signed ‘Tallin Charter on Health Systems and Wealth’ which aims to provide guidance and a strategic framework for strengthening health systems in the WHO European Region.

In her address to the Regional Committee for Europe, Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, renewed WHO’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. IPPF EN was also delighted to see that the Health MDGs were at the top of the agenda of the WHO Regional Director Dr Marc Danzon and Deputy Regional Director Nata Menabde.

IPPF EN is keen on supporting Member States for the implementation of the Charter. In particular, IPPF EN is involved in the debate around the implementation of the provisions on the involvement and participation of stakeholders. An interesting discussion took place with WHO staff about partnership and meaningful involvement of NGOs in the WHO work and contacts have been established with the Member State delegates in charge of developing the implementation plan of the Charter.

The IPPF European Network delegate at the meeting, Advocacy Officer Irene Donadio, made a statement on behalf of IPPF EN on strengthening health systems and SRHR. She underlined the importance of ensuring efficiency and a right based approach. IPPF has created a Quality of Care system to foster delivering high quality services while respecting the rights of the clients.  IPPF Quality of Care model is currently implemented in 34 countries; it was created for reproductive health services but can easily be adapted to any other type of health service. Ms Donadio reminded the delegates that IPPF EN will address the same topic at the forthcoming WHO meeting in Malta on strengthening health systems on family and community care. The meeting will take place on September 29 - October 2, 2008. Ms Donadio also took the opportunity to stress that without universal access to SRHR, the health MDGs cannot be met, even in the European region.

The link to the Tallin Charter is:

http://www.euro.who.int/document/HSM/6_hsc08_edoc06.pdf

For more information on Quality of Care Programme, see: http://www.ippf.org/en/What-we-do/Quality+of+Care+programme.htm

Aftermath of the European Conference on the right to abortion

Approximately 200 delegates from 17 European countries representing women's rights organisations, political parties, trade unions, health insurance funds, SRHR partner organisations, including the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, came together on 19-20 September, in Paris, for the European Conference on the Right to abortion: "What is at stake for women in Europe?"

IPPF Member Association of France, le Mouvement Français pour Le Planning Familial (MFPF), took the opportunity of the French Presidency of the European Union to organize this major event in partnership with CADAC (Coordination Nationale d'Associations pour le Droit à l'Avortement et à la Contraception), ANCIC (Association Nationale des Centres d’Interruption de Grossesse et de Contraception), IPPF EN and the European Women’s Lobby.

The focus of the Conference was the right to abortion in the European Union, legal and socio- economical obstacles to abortion rights and strategies to promote this right.

The Conference was attended by the IPPF EN Regional Director, the Advocacy Officer and the IPPF Member Associations from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The partners that organised the conference agreed on a final declaration and called all participants and interested parties to join forces and show their firm commitment for the future.

The declaration affirms the right of a woman over her own body as a fundamental principle. It stresses that it is essential to enable women to live in a more equal, just and democratic society.

Furthermore it calls all feminist organisations, associations and NGOs, decision makers at all levels, trade unions, youth activists to be vigilant and support the recognition of a women's right to abortion. This means that every woman should be able to find a solution in the country where she resides and should not be obliged to travel or to resort to illegal and potentially unsafe abortion at home.  

A number of commitments have been made in the Declaration in relation to the follow-up of the conference such as the establishing of a network of like-minded organisations and the drafting of an action plan which will be developed in the next 3 months.

The Declaration has also been officially handed out to the representatives of IPPF Member Associations of Sweden and the Czech Republic to be used with their governments during their presidencies of the EU.

First EU Summit on Europe’s Roma communities

The First EU Roma Summit took place in Brussels on 16 September bringing together some 400 representatives of EU institutions, national governments, parliaments and civil society, including Roma organisations. The meeting discussed the situation of Roma communities in the EU and ways to improve it. The European Commission together with the French Presidency of the EU organised this event as a follow-up to the Commission’s July 2008 Report on EU Instruments and Policies for Roma Inclusion. The Summit was organized as the next step in the process to support and promote a joint commitment to support non-discrimination in general and improve the situation of Roma in particular by the Member States, the EU institutions and civil society.

During the Summit, The EU Roma Policy Coalition (ERPC), an informal gathering of NGOs working on different aspects of discrimination against Roma people, "called on the European Commission to refrain from preaching empty words and come up with concrete strategies to tackle the problems faced by Europe's Roma population." (see http://roma.wieni.be/home )

Roma representatives also criticized EU executive body's recent failure to condemn Italy over new security measures to fingerprint the country’s Roma community; a policy that human rights groups denounce as discriminatory against Roma.

The results of the debates and conclusions of the Summit should be submitted to the French Presidency for further consideration in the Council of Ministers ahead of the December 2008 European Council meeting of EU leaders.

In December 2007, EU leaders acknowledged for the first time that the Roma face a very specific situation across the EU and called upon Member States and the Union to use all means to improve their inclusion.

In January 2008, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution on a European strategy to improve the position of the 10 million Roma people living in the EU.

In the resolution, MEPs warned against the 'Anti-Gypsyism or Romaphobia still widespread in Europe' and called for EU anti-discrimination measures and renewed efforts to integrate Roma through positive measures in housing, health, education and employment. The Parliament also condemned the substandard and unsanitary living conditions and wide scale 'ghettoisation' of Romani people and urged the Commission to put an end to Romani slums in those Member States where they exist by developing successful and positive housing for Roma, including Romani migrants.

The Commission’s July 2008 Report is available via:

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/fundamental_rights/pdf/pubst/poldoc/csw_en.pdf

European Parliament Resolution on Maternal Mortality

On 4 September, the European Parliament adopted a right based resolution entitled "Resolution on Maternal Mortality ahead of the UN High-level Event on Millenium Development Goals to be held on 25 September 2008".

The Resolution’s aim is to express the European Parliament’s concerns about the maternal mortality statistics and to call upon the Council and the European Commission to prioritise actions on the Millenium Development Goal # 5 in the next UN High-level Event on the MDGs to be held at UN headquarters in New York, on 25 September. IPPF was represented at this high-level forum by Dr Gill Greer, Director General and Stuart Halford, Advocacy Officer.

The resolution indicates that "the causes of maternal mortality could be prevented by the provision of safe maternal care, access to effective contraception, and legal and safe abortions".

The resolution calls on the Commission and Council to promote access for all women to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services. The services should be affordable, available, accessible and of good quality.

IPPF EN sees this resolution as a useful advocacy tool and has encouraged its members to share the resolution with their national delegations attending the High-level Forum in New York.

The text of the adopted resolution can be downloaded from: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2008-0406+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN

YSAFE Steering Committee meeting in Brussels

The IPPF EN youth network’s (YSAFE) Steering Committee met on 8-9 September in Brussels to start the initial planning for the YSAFE annual meeting which offers once a year the opportunity for YSAFE members to come together to discuss relevant topics and share experiences. Participants at the YSAFE Steering Committee followed-up on commitments made and work done since their participation at the IPPF EN Regional Council last June as well as to plan their upcoming work.

In addition, the meeting also provided the opportunity for giving input into the review of the IPPF EN Strategic Plan 2009-2015.

For more information, please contact the YSAFE intern coordinator Luize Ratniece at lratniece@ippfen.org and Ada Dortch, Programme Support Officer at adortch@ippfen.org

New website in Dutch talks about sex for young people

The Belgian Flemish Member Association, Sensoa has recently launched a new website designed for the country’s internet generation aged between 15 and 25 years old. With www.allesoverseks.be , young people are given the possibility, online, to know all there is to know about sex. Visitors of the website are offered more than 2.500 questions and answers as well as 650 search words. Among the many tools available, young people can post their personal testimonies, participate in polls, take part in forum discussions, and also log in to share "Alles over seks" with their Facebook and Netlog friends.

For more information, visit: http://allesoverseks.be/

Source: Sensoa

fpa launches new comic for primary schools

IPPF MA of UK, fpa has launched a new booklet on growing-up for 6-7 year old boys and girls today entitled ‘Let’s Grow with Nisha and Joe’ which introduces the idea of identity, physical and emotional development.

The colourful 12-page comic is intended to be part of a planned programme of Sexual and Relationships Education being taught in school. It is designed to help teachers and parents/carers talk with children about growing-up, and to help them understand the differences between girls’ and boys’ bodies in a relaxed and fun way. Topics covered include: naming the main parts of the body, the differences between boys’ and girls’ bodies, the importance of family and friends, caring for each other and keeping safe.

‘Let’s grow with Nisha and Joe’ is funded by The Balcombe Charitable Trust, The Leslie Morgan Foundation and fpa. Testing took place with over 50 different primary schools who helped feed into the comic’s content and design.

Julie Bentley, Chief Executive, fpa said: "Sex and Relationships Education in primary schools isn’t compulsory by law. As a result, it’s taught fairly intermittently and inconsistently across the country. ‘Let’s Grow with Nisha and Joe’ comes with a set of comprehensive guidance notes to give teachers the confidence to use the resource. Hopefully, this will help encourage schools who currently aren’t teaching SRE to start doing so."

For further information on fpa’s new comic ‘Let’s grow with Nisha and Joe’ , contact fpa’s press office at adams@fpa.org.uk

Source: fpa

Events

6 October – European Parliament Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Public hearing on the situation of Fundamental Rights in the EU http://www.socialplatform.org/News.asp?DocID=18900

1- 2 December – European Commission European Day of People with Disabilities Conference "Acting locally for a society for all"  http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=88&langId=en&eventsId=104

10-11 December - EU Open Health Forum conference: Developing and Implementing Health in the European Union http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_overview/health_forum/open_2008/index_en.htm