Tour brings reproductive rights activists from around the world to New Brunswick

Young activists from Bangladesh, the Philippines and El Salvador discussed the global movement for sexual and reproductive health and rights in Fredericton and Moncton last week as part of an tour of eastern Canada.

Other stops on the speaking tour took place in Ottawa, St. John’s, Halifax, and Montreal. The events had a special significance in New Brunswick, a province where teenage pregnancy rates are almost double the national average and access to reproductive care remains a problem.

The events, organized by the Ottawa-based group Inter Pares, came days after a provincial election dominated by the Liberals, who campaigned on a pledge to improve access to abortions. Nathalia Santos Ocasio, program manager for Inter Pares, said panel participants were “excited to be talking about this here, especially after the results of the recent elections.”

The panel took place on Friday at Resurgo Place in Moncton and on Saturday at Conserver House in Fredericton. The NB Media Co-op livestreamed the event in Moncton, and the full presentation is available here. 

Bangladesh

Sharaban Tohura is an advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights from Nijera Kori, a Bangladesh-based group based active on issues including the prevention of child marriage.

Abortion hasn’t been illegal in Bangladesh since the country gained independence from Pakistan in 1971. However, there is an implementation gap in the access to services because of how social expectations affect women, Tohura said.

She said the country is suffering “growing religious conservatism and patriarchal social norms.” Child marriage and teen marriages occur “at an alarming rate,” often for children “who are not aware of sexuality.”

Nijera Kori means “we need to do it ourselves,” a name signalling that women in Bangladesh “need to step up,” she said. The group “highlights the voices that are not heard and sometimes silenced in their communities” and it works in more than 10,000 villages.

El Salvador

Wendy Barrera Rivas is part of La Colectiva Feminista Para el Desarollo Local from El Salvador, an organization fighting against the criminalization of sexual and reproductive rights. El Salvador’s feminist movement “is leading the resistance against the government,” according to Barrera Rivas, who is a lawyer by training. Speaking in Fredericton, she likened this work to “an extreme sport.”

El Salvador is currently under a state of emergency which limits rights of citizens, and this has resulted in the illegal detention of human rights defenders, she said.

“The country has some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the region,” she said, “and the least access to justice for sexual violence.” Longstanding machismo, taboos, and pressure from the religious right are some of the issues faced by the organization.

Even discussing abortion is illegal in the Central American country, “one of the most repressive public policies in Latin America,” she said. Gender and diversity is a forbidden topic in the country and many healthcare clinics have been shut down, especially those for LGBTQI+ populations and survivors of sexual violence, while access to medicines for reproductive care or sexually transmitted diseases are not a government priority.

The Philippines

Estephanie Brigatay is a nurse clinician and clinic manager from the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health in the Philippines, one of the most populous countries in southeast Asia. She said the Philippines’ health system is decentralized, leaving decisions to local governments and resulting in “unevenly held services” in a “fragmented health system.”

The Philippines has had a “comprehensive reproductive health law” on the books since 2012, along with a “universal healthcare law” since 2019. Both were the result of a long fight, and there has also been a struggle for the implementation of those laws, Brigatay said. She said there has been an increased number of teenage pregnancies in several regions, but there has been no correlation in improved services.

The Likhaan Center for Women’s Health offers a number of services, including primary care clinics that provide contraception to teenagers without parental consent, which is illegal in the Philippines.

She noted that a major innovation following the COVID-19 pandemic is teleconsultations. Brigatay said this allows her to reach far-flung communities in the vast Philippine archipelago. Brigatay is inspired in her work by everyday events and the “realization that we need more advocates …. to push the government to make a law and implement it.”

Inter Pares

Inter Pares is currently celebrating 50 years of international activism in Canada. The group recently held a photographic exhibit titled “Daughters, mothers, grandmothers and other sexual outlaws.”

Tobin LeBlanc-Haley, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, served as moderator for the Fredericton event. The moderators in Moncton were professors Krista Johnston and Christiana MacDougall of Mount Allison University.

Local co-sponsors of the event included the NB Media Co-op, the UNB/STU University Women’s Centre, the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre, and Reproductive Justice New Brunswick.

Sophie M. Lavoie is a member of the NB Media Co-op’s editorial board.