Impact Newsletter

🇲🇽 With 20 votes in favour, 16 against and one null, the Jalisco congress decriminalised voluntary abortion up to 12 weeks, repealing article 227 and modifying article 228 of the state’s penal code. The bill also introduces article 228 bis which considers criminal sanctions for anyone who forces a woman to have an abortion without her consent. 💚 As a result, Jalisco aligns itself with the Supreme Court's ruling on the non-criminalisation of abortion, and consolidates as the 14th Mexican state to decriminalise the voluntary termination of pregnancy. In April, a Jalisco court had already ordered the local congress to repeal penalties for abortion.

🇺🇸 US states that have recently enacted anti-transgender laws have seen suicide attempts among transgender youth increase, a Trevor Project study published in the journal Nature has revealed. 🏳️⚧️ The researchers examined how 48 anti-trans laws that were enacted in 19 US state governments between 2018 and 2022 affected suicide risk among young people. Compared to the previous year and to states that did not implement restrictive laws, it was found that there were statistically significant increases in suicide attempts in the first year after the enactment of anti-trans laws. Some of these restrictions include denying access to gender-affirming care or forcing trans students to use the restrooms of their assigned sex at birth. 👉 The study found that suicide attempts among transgender teenagers aged 13-17 increased by up to 72% following the passage of anti-trans laws, while the rate rose by 44% when including a full sample of trans and non-binary youth aged 13-24 years. The findings highlight the importance of considering the mental health impact of restricting trans and non-binary people’s rights.

🏥 Around the world, women with serious illnesses are more likely to be abandoned by their partner than men. 🇪🇬 In Egypt, some families can even block treatment for women and girls who need treatment. 🚻 Healthcare professionals say patriarchal attitudes have led to a two-tier system in the country, often divided on gender lines. Read "Abandoned for the crime of getting sick", by Faten Sobhi 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dE2m5AwF

🇺🇸 A court in the US state of Georgia has struck down a six-week ban on abortion, a period before most people know they are pregnant. As long as the ruling remains in place, abortions may be performed again up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. ❎ The six-week ban was in effect from 2022, halving the number of abortions performed in the state. Many women received abortion pills by mail, while others were forced to travel to other states to terminate their pregnancies. But, due to the prohibition or restriction of abortion in many southern states, women had to travel thousands of miles to Virginia, or North Carolina, where two visits must be made within 72 hours to access the procedure. Last month, the investigative journalism site ProPublica revealed that two women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, had died as a result of Georgia’s abortion ban. ➡️ In his ruling, judge Rober McBurney wrote: “Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote … It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the foetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could — or should — force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”

🇧🇪 The right-wing Arizona coalition voted against a bill introduced by left parties that would have extended abortion time limits in Belgium to 18 weeks, as well as eliminating a mandatory pre-termination “reflection period”. The initiative was presented to the parliament's Justice Committee, but it was rejected. 🟢 Abortion is legal up to 12 weeks in Belgium, following a reflection period of six days between the first medical consultation and the start of the procedure. As a result, every year more than 350 women travel to the Netherlands, where abortion is legal until 22 weeks, to terminate unwanted pregnancies. 🚌 Since parliament opened on 19 September, feminist activists have demonstrated in front of the Palace of Justice with an abortion bus, illustrating the situation of Belgian women. However, just ten days later, the right wing shot down the bill, forcing women to continue travelling to another country to exercise their right to choose.

🇨🇩 An internal report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) revealed that 268 of 348 women prisoners were raped or suffered sexual violence, mainly by male prisoners, following a mass escape attempt at Makala, the largest prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo. ❕ The prison houses more than 15,000 inmates, despite having capacity for only 1,500. During the riot, 131 people were killed. Prison authorities admitted that there were episodes of sexual violence, although they never indicated that it affected 80% of the female inmates. 🔎 According to Human Rights Watch, some female inmates received post-rape care, such as emergency contraception against pregnancy and post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV within 72 hours of the attacks, but did not receive counselling until 10 days later. The episodes are under investigation.

🎒 School-based sex ed opens the door to conversations that otherwise might not happen at all, between children and their parents, or even their peers. It also gives us the language we might need to talk about sex when we’re adults. So, when sex ed doesn’t include disabled people, they are robbed not only of basic knowledge but also the ability to ask for information. ➡️ The long-term effect is that disabled people, particularly women and girls, are left disempowered, without the same knowledge as their peers, undermining their confidence and their ability to make informed decisions. It can certainly compromise their safety. 🗣️ "I spent my late teens and early twenties attempting and failing to date, held back by society’s ableism but also, at times, by my own fears about how sex and relationships would be for a body like mine. But the social isolation stemming from poor sex ed that I experienced is just the tip of the iceberg for many disabled women and girls". Read “What inclusive sex education actually looks like”, by Lucy Webster, journalist, author and disability activist 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dCbNvN-T

💚 Today is International Safe Abortion Day 💚 ✊ This year France made history by enshrining abortion rights in its constitution, while in countries including Argentina, Benin, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Ireland, Mexico, and South Korea, access to abortion has recently been expanded. ➡️ Around the world, three in five women live under restrictive abortion laws. These restrictions have a significant impact in their lives: an estimated 39,000 women and girls die each year from the consequences of unsafe abortion. #abortionrights #abortionrightsarehumanrights #safeabortionday #Sept28

🇬🇪 The Georgian parliament has passed a law that will severely curtail the rights of LGBTQIA+ people, including a ban on same-sex marriage, gender-affirming care and adoptions by same-sex couples. ⚠️ Introduced by the ruling Georgian Dream party earlier this year and strongly influenced by the Orthodox church, the bill also provides a legal basis to outlaw pride events and the rainbow flag, and could impose censorship of certain media, all supposedly to protect family values and minors from LGBTQIA+ “propaganda”. 😡 Just two days after the law was passed, a transgender woman - Kesaria Abramidz - was stabbed to death in her flat in the capital, Tbilisi, in an alleged hate crime. ➡️ Georgia’s law has been compared to recent Russian legislation that bans gender-affirming care and outlaws the LGBTQIA+ movement in the country. Bulgaria also passed a similar law this year.

🇸🇨 🌈 The Seychelles national assembly has approved a new hate crime law that includes sexual and gender identity as protected characteristics. Vice president Ahmed Afif proposed the amendment, which received 18 votes in favour and eight against. ➡️ The hate crimes provisions specifically include factors such as sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV/AIDS status. For a first conviction, the bill provides for fines of $3,600 and up to two years in prison, while repeat offenders will face fines of $8,600 and up to three years in prison. 🤝 The Seychelles decriminalised consensual same-sex sexual relations in 2016. It now becomes the second African country to consider hate motives as aggravating factors in crimes, after South Africa passed similar legislation in 2018.