agri
Abortion, Gender and Rights Institute (Hindi)
Starting in 2015, CREA and its partner organization CommonHealth launched this five-day Institute to help practitioners and activists push beyond a family planning and public health perspective and support more conceptual and political clarity around abortion that integrates gender, rights, sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), and safe abortion perspectives.
The Abortion, Gender and Rights Institute is organized for participants from community-based organizations and nonprofit organizations working on issues of health, gender, and empowerment. The Institute covers a range of crucial topics related to abortion and SRHR, sexuality, gender, contraception, programs and policies by the state, the legal system in India and values, sex ratio, communication and advocacy.
I came to know about different issues that affect women’s health and access to safe abortion through various sessions. This was also the first time we discussed about sexuality, which I felt was only limited to private parts/genitals. Through this institute, I have been able to understand how all these different issues are controlled by patriarchy and how it affects women’s health.
– Participant
Access to Safe abortion is not just about legal right to abortion, but about structural issues that oppress the sexuality, bodily autonomy of an individual. Through the AGRI, CREA has actively engaged on issues of abortion by expanding the discourse on abortion through a reproductive rights and justice framework and building the capacity of activists and organizations working on SRHR. The aim is to enable gender justice and SRHR advocates in India to both speak out against sex selection and defend women’s access to a safe termination of an unwanted pregnancy.
To emphasize on choice and access and foreground the intersecting social justice issues influencing the choice and access of an individual, CREA has continued the work by creating a cohort of gender champions, already trained at CREA’s Institutes and belonging to different movements. These activists and practitioners take their work forward with a vision to build a strong cross movement dialogue around abortion rights. As a result, CREA, as part of its Access to Safe Abortion program (under Safe Abortion Action Fund) organizes and advocates for the sexual reproductive rights for all. To challenge the structural power inequalities, and to create an inclusive model.