Reproductive Health Matters最新文献

{"title":"The state of human rights in relation to key populations, HIV and sexual and reproductive health","authors":"O. K. Dingake","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2018.1543992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2018.1543992","url":null,"abstract":"This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the bold acknowledgement by all the nations of the world that “the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. As we celebrate the UDHR anniversary, we also need to take stock to reflect on humanity’s journey on this incredible path of realising human rights for all. In doing so, we must acknowledge that whilst the rhetoric has been on the inalienable rights of all members of the human family, the reality on the ground has been different, often characterised by the violation of rights of sexual minorities and other marginalised groups. Increasingly, humanity accepts the proposition that a fair, prosperous, secure and sustainable future is not possible if the rights of every person are not recognised in practice and in law. Perhaps no other public health epidemic has tried this assertion as well as the proclamation of “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” by the UDHR, as has HIV. HIV is not just a public health matter, it is also a human rights and social justice challenge perpetuated by stigma and discrimination and the failure to guarantee the rights of thosemost at risk of the disease. As a result, HIV continues to be a major global public health concern, having claimed more than 35 million lives so far. In 2017, 940,000 people died from HIV-related causes globally. Globally, there were approximately 36.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2017, including 1.8 million people who became newly infected in 2017. Key populations are groups who are at increased risk of HIV infection, irrespective of epidemic type or local context. According to UNAIDS, key populations include gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, people in prisons and other closed settings, sex workers and their clients, and transgender people. They often have legal and social issues related to their behaviours that increase their vulnerability to HIV and reduce access to testing and treatment programmes. These behaviours are often criminalised, making it difficult for people to freely access health services for fear of arrests. Young people, due to specific higher risk behaviours, such as inconsistent use of condoms, are often regarded as part of key or vulnerable populations. What these populations have in common is that in many jurisdictions, they are marginalised, criminalised or in conflict with the criminal justice system, and subject to serious violations of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – equality, dignity, non-discrimination, life, liberty, security of the persons, effective remedy, fair trial, freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, arbitrary arrest and detention, freedom of movement, expression, assembly ","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"26 1","pages":"46 - 50"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2018.1543992","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45347666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Securing the right to safe and legal abortion: perspectives from the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission","authors":"S. Sadinsky, Susheela Singh, Cynthia Summers","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2018.1542915","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2018.1542915","url":null,"abstract":"In March 2018, the Democratic Republic of Congo moved to enact the Maputo Protocol, under which signatory states agree to authorise legal access to abortion in a range of circumstances. Two months later, voters in Ireland delivered a decisive victory for reproductive rights, choosing overwhelmingly to repeal the country’s near-total ban on abortion. The following month, Argentina’s lower house of Congress voted in favour of a draft bill that would permit abortion up to 14 weeks; although the upper house narrowly rejected the legislation, this was the closest the country ever came to legalising abortion. While progress remains uneven, these developments speak to a shifting consensus on abortion rights around the world and unfold alongside mounting efforts of advocates to position safe and legal abortion as a human right. The seeds of this shift were planted in Cairo in 1994. Until the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) that year, there had not been a global agreement that created common language on sexual and reproductive health, or on the rights people have when it comes to making reproductive decisions. The Programme of Action that emerged from ICPD mapped out the linkages between social and economic growth, sustainable development, and individual and collective wellbeing. It also identified key components of sexual and reproductive health care, which included the provision of safe abortion services in settings where such care is not against the law. Since 1994, more than 30 countries, many in the developing world, have amended their laws to expand access to safe and legal abortion. Nonetheless, abortion is often viewed as a separate domain entirely, rather than as a core component of sexual and reproductive health care. This lack of integration makes it much easier to neglect, and in some cases exclude, abortion care in both programming and policy-making. In recognition of the value of taking a more holistic approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights, the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights convened in 2016. Composed of 16 experts with multidisciplinary experience from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America, the Commission set out to gather the most current evidence on sexual and reproductive health and rights at the global level, with the aim of driving transformational change, through an evidence-based agenda, focused on policy and political action. Its resulting report, released inMay 2018, reveals enormous gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide, and quantifies the toll those gaps take on individuals, countries and regions as a whole. The Commission’s report presents a new, comprehensive definition of sexual and reproductive health and rights, which integrates the full range of people’s sexual and reproductive health needs. Drawing on international and regional agreements of the past 25 years, this new definition highl","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"26 1","pages":"54 - 56"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2018.1542915","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44677057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the UDHR, celebrating sexual and reproductive rights","authors":"Eszter Kismödi, L. Ferguson","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2018.1550239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2018.1550239","url":null,"abstract":"Sexual and reproductive rights are human rights. In 1948, when States proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations, they recognised “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”, civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. Most relevant to sexual and reproductive health (SRH), the UDHR recognised the right to non-discrimination, the right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to social security, the right to a standard of living adequate for health and wellbeing, and that “motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance”. The UDHR did not go into details about the areas of life to which these rights are particularly applicable, but reaffirmed the dignity and worth of the human person, the equal rights of women and men and the determination to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. Human rights related to sexuality, gender, gender diversity and SRH have been recognised in the treaties which were generated from the UDHR, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These have been expanded upon by the Treaty Monitoring Bodies’ General Recommendations and Comments, which constitute official interpretations of the treaties. The Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, for example, adopted a specific General Comment on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment on the implementation of the rights of the child during adolescence specifically recognises that “there should be no barriers to commodities, information and counselling on sexual and reproductive health and rights, such as requirements for third-party consent or authorization”. The Human Rights Committee’s latest General Comment provides the international community a much-needed framework to hold governments accountable for the high rates of death and injury which occur when women are forced to seek unsafe abortions, and calls for the provision of comprehensive reproductive health services. Sexual and reproductive rights have received extensive legal recognition at regional and national levels as well over the past decades. The European Court of Human Rights, for example, recognised the right to sexuality education as early as 1976, and most recently issued a similar decision in connection with Switzerland’s legal obligation to provide sexuality education to children, as a clear recognition of the role that sexuality education plays in the global education of children, in the fight against sexual abuse and in the protection of public health. At the national level, there is a major evolution of law reform in relation to decriminalising same-sex sexual conduct, and recognising equal rights regardless of sexual orientation and for same-sex couples, as ","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"26 1","pages":"1 - 5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2018.1550239","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41666643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Litigating to ensure access to quality maternal health care for women and girls in Kenya.","authors":"Beatrice Odallo,&nbsp;Evelyne Opondo,&nbsp;Martin Onyango","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2018.1508172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2018.1508172","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Access to comprehensive reproductive health care for women and girls, including access to quality maternal health services remains a challenge in Kenya. A recent government enquiry assessing close to 500 maternal deaths that occurred in 2014 revealed gaps in the quality of maternal care, concluding that more than 90% of the women who had died had received \"suboptimal\" maternal care. In Kenya, the Center for Reproductive Rights (the Center) has undertaken public interest litigation among other strategies to challenge human rights violations and systematic failures within the health sector. In 2014, before the High Court of Bungoma in Western Kenya, the Center filed a case on behalf of Josephine Majani who had been neglected and abused by the staff of the Bungoma County Referral Hospital, a public health facility where she had gone to deliver in 2013. This commentary addresses the situation of maternal health care in Kenya and the actions leading to litigation that was specifically aimed at enabling access to quality maternal health care. It provides an analysis of some of the outcomes of the litigation and highlights the implications thereof on implementation of maternal health care in Kenya and beyond.</p>","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"26 53","pages":"123-129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2018.1508172","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36435634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The AIDS conference 2018: a critical moment","authors":"S. Gruskin, J. Hussein","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2018.1510602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2018.1510602","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"26 1","pages":"10 - 8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2018.1510602","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48420831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Zika virus - the glamour of a new illness, the practical abandonment of the mothers and new evidence on uncertain causality.","authors":"Simone G Diniz,&nbsp;Halana F Andrezzo","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2017.1397442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2017.1397442","url":null,"abstract":"To appraise the impact of the Zika virus epidemics, we need to understand the challenges to reproductive justice posed by this new disease in a context of structural inequities. In August 2014, an outbreak of an illness with a flat pinkish rash, joint pain, bloodshot eyes, fever and headaches started in Natal, Northeast Brazil. Testing ruled out dengue and other potential causes. By March 2015, the illness had appeared in three different states, and in May 2015, researchers found that it was an outbreak of the Zika virus, transmitted by the same mosquito that is the vector for dengue and chikungunya viruses, the Aedes aegypti. Zika infection was previously associated with neurological complications, such as Guillian-Barré syndrome (GBS) in a few cases, but up to that moment, was generally thought as a relatively benign illness, a type of a “soft dengue”. By September 2015, medical providers in the States of Paraíba and Pernambuco reported increased cases of microcephaly and cerebral calcifications. Other illnesses were ruled out, and the tests for Zika virus were positive in the amniotic fluid of affected pregnant women in mid-November. In the following months, thousands of suspected cases of microcephaly and other neurological malformations emerged in Brazil, creating a global concern on this new public health and reproductive threat. In February 2016, looking in particular at the strong association, in time and place, between a rise in detected cases of congenital malformations, neurological complications and infection with the Zika virus, the World Health Organization considered that the situation met the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The scientific interest in this new public health emergency led to an explosion of publications on the biological, epidemiological and clinical aspects, and on establishing the causality links between the virus and the congenital syndrome. In April 2016, a WHO report noted that “microcephaly and other fetal malformations potentially associated with Zika virus infection or suggestive of congenital infection” were reported in Brazil (1046 cases), Cape Verde (2 cases), Colombia (7 cases), French Polynesia (8 cases), Martinique (3 cases) and Panama (1 case). There were two additional cases, linked to a stay in Brazil. The series of neurological harms associated with the Zika virus was called congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). Although Zika virus has spread throughout Brazil, Latin America and other regions, the concentration of high rates of microcephaly has been reported only in the Northeast of Brazil, and basically in poorer areas. By mid-2016, evidence suggested that Zika can cause microcephaly, but the clustering pattern hints that other environmental, socio-economic or biological factors could be at play. Cases were concentrated in areas where there is little or no sanitation, with open sewage, and without a regular supply of clean drinking water (leading to the need to store w","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"25 49","pages":"21-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2017.1397442","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35328611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Title, Table of Contents and Acknowledgements","authors":"M. Onyango, Shirin Heidari, S. Krause, S. Chynoweth, M. Tanabe, A. Foster, Dabney P. Evans, Melissa M. Garcia, Sarah Knaster, S. Krause, T. McGinn, S. Rich, Meera Shah, P. Chaudhary, Giulia Vallese, Meera Thapa, Valerie Broch Alvarez, L. M. Pradhan, Kiran Baj, A. Radhakrishnan, Elena Sarver, Julie Freccero, Heleen Touquet, N. Tran, K. Harker, J. Lohani, O. Maharjan, Sake Jemelia Beda, Elizabeth Akinyi Odinga, A. Ouattara, C. Ouedraogo, Alison Greer, S. Krause, M. Hassan, Samira Sami, K. Kerber, Barbara Tomczyk, Ribka Amsalu, D. Jackson, Elaine Scudder","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2017.1413862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2017.1413862","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"25 1","pages":"i - iv"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2017.1413862","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44870851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Uptake of postabortion care services and acceptance of postabortion contraception in Puntland, Somalia.","authors":"Kingsley Chukwumalu,&nbsp;Meghan C Gallagher,&nbsp;Sabine Baunach,&nbsp;Amy Cannon","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2017.1402670","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2017.1402670","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Unsafe abortion is responsible for at least 9% of all maternal deaths worldwide; however, in humanitarian emergencies where health systems are weak and reproductive health services are often unavailable or disrupted, this figure is higher. In Puntland, Somalia, Save the Children International (SCI) implemented postabortion care (PAC) services to address the issue of high maternal morbidity and mortality due to unsafe abortion. Abortion is explicitly permitted by Somali law to save the life of a woman, but remains a sensitive topic due to religious and social conservatism that exists in the region. Using a multipronged approach focusing on capacity building, assurance of supplies and infrastructure, and community collaboration and mobilisation, the demand for PAC services increased as did the proportion of women who adopted a method of family planning post-abortion. From January 2013 to December 2015, a total of 1111 clients received PAC services at the four SCI-supported health facilities. The number of PAC clients increased from a monthly average of 20 in 2013 to 38 in 2015. During the same period, 98% (1090) of PAC clients were counselled for postabortion contraception, of which 955 (88%) accepted a contraceptive method before leaving the facility, with 30% opting for long-acting reversible contraception. These results show that comprehensive PAC services can be implemented in politically unstable, culturally conservative settings where abortion and modern contraception are sensitive and stigmatised matters among communities, health workers, and policy makers. However, like all humanitarian settings, large unmet needs exist for PAC services in Somalia.</p>","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"25 51","pages":"48-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2017.1402670","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35639815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Clinical outreach refresher trainings in crisis settings (S-CORT): clinical management of sexual violence survivors and manual vacuum aspiration in Burkina Faso, Nepal, and South Sudan.","authors":"Nguyen Toan Tran,&nbsp;Kristen Harker,&nbsp;Wambi Maurice E Yameogo,&nbsp;Seni Kouanda,&nbsp;Tieba Millogo,&nbsp;Emebet Dlasso Menna,&nbsp;Jeevan Raj Lohani,&nbsp;Om Maharjan,&nbsp;Sake Jemelia Beda,&nbsp;Elizabeth Akinyi Odinga,&nbsp;Adama Ouattara,&nbsp;Charlemagne Ouedraogo,&nbsp;Alison Greer,&nbsp;Sandra Krause","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2017.1405678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2017.1405678","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>During the early humanitarian response to a crisis, there is limited time to train health providers in the life-saving clinical services of the Minimum Initial Services Package (MISP) for Reproductive Health. The Training Partnership Initiative of the Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises developed the S-CORT model (Sexual and reproductive health Clinical Outreach Refresher Training) for service providers operating in acute humanitarian settings and needing to rapidly refresh their knowledge and skills. Through qualitative research, this study aimed to determine the operational enablers and barriers related to the implementation of two S-CORT modules: clinical management of sexual violence survivors (CMoSVS) and manual vacuum aspiration (MVA). Across three participating countries (Burkina Faso, Nepal, and South Sudan), 135 health staff attended the CMoSVS refresher training and 94 the MVA refresher training. Results from the focus group discussions and in-depth interviews suggest that the S-CORT approach is respectful of human rights and quality of care principles. Furthermore, it is potentially effective in enhancing the knowledge and skills of existing trained service providers, strengthening their capacity, and changing their attitudes towards abortion-related services, for example. The S-CORT is a promising model for implementation in the acute phase of an emergency upon stabilisation of the security situation. The model can also be integrated into broader post-crisis capacity development efforts. Future operational research should emphasise not only an assessment of new modules' contents, but whether implementing this refresher training model in remote outreach settings is feasible, effective, and efficient.</p>","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"25 51","pages":"103-113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2017.1405678","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35668334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Care with dignity in humanitarian crises: ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights of displaced populations.","authors":"Monica Adhiambo Onyango,&nbsp;Shirin Heidari","doi":"10.1080/09688080.2017.1411093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2017.1411093","url":null,"abstract":"Each year, the number of people affected by humanitarian emergencies continues to increase, and the contexts become more complex, requiring thoughtful, intentional innovation and the creation of an evidence base that informs programme design, implementation and practice. In 2015, the numbers of people forcibly displaced from their homes hit a record high, with a 75% increase in two decades, rising from 37.3 million in 1996 to 65.3 million by the end of 2015. This translates to 24 persons being displaced from their homes every minute of every day in 2015, as a result of persecution, conflict, generalised violence or human rights violations. This trend is expected to continue. In addition, there were 19.2 million new displacements associated with natural disasters in 113 countries. The right to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is an indispensable part of the right to health and is dependent upon a number of factors that include availability and accessibility to quality evidence-based services. While entire populations benefit from access to SRH services and rights, women and adolescent girls face a host of particular vulnerabilities. It is estimated that around 26 million women and girls of reproductive age are living in emergency situations around the world and face increased threats to their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), requiring access to quality services. While services such as food aid, shelter, water and sanitation, security and basic health services are crucial in the early stages of a humanitarian crisis, the provision of reproductive health services has been recognised as an additional priority early in an emergency. Commendable progress has been made to make SRHR services available since the mid-90s, when a landmark report highlighted the lack of comprehensive SRH care among populations in crises. This state of affairs triggered the 1995 formation of the Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises (IAWG), a network of organisations dedicated to addressing the gaps in the provision of SRH services to communities affected by conflict and disaster. For more than two decades, organisations and individuals affiliated to IAWG have made concerted efforts to advance reproductive health through advocacy, research, standard setting and guidance development. To this end, major strides have been made, although much more remains to be done. In 2008, Reproductive Health Matters (RHM) dedicated a journal issue to the theme of conflict and crises, a well-timed issue that shed light on the devastating implications of conflict and crises on women and girls, highlighted ongoing response efforts and identified the unmet SRHR needs of populations in these fragile settings. Nearly 10 years later, with record numbers of people facing crises and displacement, it is once again time to draw attention to advances made, share best practices and discuss challenges in service implementation in crises and protracted humanitarian","PeriodicalId":32527,"journal":{"name":"Reproductive Health Matters","volume":"25 51","pages":"1-6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/09688080.2017.1411093","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"35683158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}