NEWS A new doctoral thesis studies how a social movement in Peru works for women’s right to contraceptives and safe abortion as well as what types of challenges it faces. The thesis will be defended by Anna-Britt Coe, Umeå University, on May 21.
The goal of ensuring women’s access to contraceptive methods, emergency contraception and safe abortion may seem simple. Yet, in Peru, legislation on abortion remains highly restrictive: abortion is only permitted when the pregnancy threatens the women’s life or health. In addition, women face tremendous socio-economic and geographical barriers to accessing these services due to discrimination based on gender, class and ethnicity. And the Catholic Church leadership strongly opposes reproductive rights and therefore actively seeks to block access to these services.The thesis describes how organizations and individual activists in the regions of Arequipa and Cuzco have contributed to the broader women’s movement’s struggle for reproductive rights since the 1980s. Initially, organizations and activists carried out training or popular education to low-income women’s groups and government health care workers on contraceptives, fertility and the body. By the mid-1990s, they began to shift strategies to advocacy directed at influencing government policies because they found that women lacked legal protection for their rights and government workers lacked directives to back new practices. In 2001, Peru initiated decentralization processes which led to the election of regional governments, with both legislative and executive branches. Organizations and activists in both regions saw the need to coordinate and develop joint advocacy strategies in the form of coalitions, given that neither political parties nor civil society organizations were taking on reproductive rights in the new context for regional politics.
The study further portrays how the reproductive rights coalitions carry out advocacy to influence policies and what effects their advocacy has on government policies. Among other things, the coalitions and their members engage in relationships with other policy actors including not only government decision-makers but also grassroots women’s organizations, professional associations, the media and the general population as well as opponents, namely the Catholic Church leadership. Another aspect has been to develop frames that convey feminist ideals while reaching these other policy actors. For example, the coalitions are more likely to emphasize women’s human rights, women’s health and gender equality rather than women’s right to control their body and sexual freedom. The coalitions’ actions and strategies are embedded with emotions such as women’s anger, pride and solidarity, and yet again, the coalitions adjust emotions according to their relationships with different policy actors.
– For the coalitions, it is important to foster trust and build a good relationship with the different social actors. Therefore, they want to avoid alienating other actors but rather demonstrate women’s situation in an informed manner, explains Anna-Britt Coe.
Contact information:Anna-Britt CoeDepartment of Sociolgy, Sociologiska institutionen, Umeå UniversityPhone: +46 (0) 90-786 78 26Mobile: +46 (0)705 23 20 35
E-mail: anna-britt.coe@soc.umu.se