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"Sexual Rights Are Human Rights

For women and girls, the right to control their own bodies and their sexuality without any form of discrimination, coercion, or violence is critical for their empowerment. Without sexual rights, they cannot realize their rights to self-determination and autonomy, nor can they control other aspects of their lives. Indeed it is the attempts to control women’s and girls’ sexuality that result in many of the human rights abuses they face on a daily basis, including gender-based violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and limitations on their mobility, dress, education, employment, and participation in public life. The same holds true for lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, transgender people, sex workers, and others who transgress sexual and gender norms and who face greater risk of violence, stigma, and discrimination as a result. 

It is clear: sexual rights underpin the enjoyment of all other human rights and are a prerequisite for equality and justice. At the global level, there is great debate about whether or how to define sexual rights. IWHC believes in order to overcome some of the political barriers to the recognition, respect for, protection, and fulfillment of sexual rights we need to clarify what they are.

 IWHC, in collaboration with other leading human rights and sexual health organizations, have developed the following working definition of sexual rights:
Sexual rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international human rights documents, and other consensus documents. They rest on the recognition that all individuals have the right—free of coercion, violence, and discrimination of any kind—to the highest attainable standard of sexual health; to pursue a satisfying, safe, and pleasurable sexual life; to have control over and decide freely, and with due regard for the rights of others, on matters related to their sexuality, reproduction, sexual orientation, bodily integrity, choice of partner, and gender identity; and to the services, education, and information, including comprehensive sexuality education, necessary to do so.

Other definitions, such as the World Health Organization working definition, make the link between sexual rights and existing human rights that are critical to the realization of sexual health, and includes: the rights to equality and non-discrimination;
the right to be free from torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment;
the right to privacy;
the rights to the highest attainable standard of health (including sexual health);
the right to marry and to found a family and enter into marriage with free and full consent of the intending spouses, and to equality in and at the dissolution of marriage;
the right to decide the number and spacing of one’s children;
the rights to information and education;
the rights to freedom of opinion and expression; and
the right to an effective remedy for violations of fundamental rights."

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