See all countries >
Mistreatment and violence against women during reproductive health care and facility-based child birth is a serious violation of women’s human rights which occurs across all geographical and income-level settings1. In a statement published in 2014, the World Health Organization reported that disrespectful and abusive treatment occurs during childbirth in facilities and includes "outright physical abuse, profound humiliation and verbal abuse, coercive or unconsented medical procedures (including sterilization), lack of confidentiality, failure to get fully informed consent, refusal to give pain medication, gross violations of privacy, refusal of admission to health facilities, neglecting women during childbirth to suffer life-threatening, avoidable complications, and detention of women and their newborns in facilities after childbirth due to an inability to pay."2
International human rights bodies and experts have addressed some of the types of mistreatment and violence, however, they have focused on a limited number of issues and their analysis of those issues has largely failed to take into account the broader context in which mistreatment and violence occur.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur analyses the issue of mistreatment and violence against women in reproductive health services with a focus on childbirth and obstetric violence. She looks as the root causes and structural issues that need to be addressed to combat such forms of mistreatment and violence. Recommendations to States and other stakeholders include, for example:
Read all conclusions and recommendations in the report on mistreatment and violence experienced by women in facility-based childbirth.
Notes
1. Bohren MA et al., The Mistreatment of Women during Childbirth in Health Facilities Globally: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review
2. World Health Organization, statement on “prevention and elimination of disrespect and abuse during childbirth.
About Special Procedures
Submitting complaints
About country visits
Overview
Mandate
International standards
Current mandate holder
Annual thematic reports
Documents
Country visits
Activities
Communications
Feature stories
Videos
Taking stock of the femicide watch initiative (2021)
Criminalization and prosecution of rape (2021)
Violence against women journalists (2020)
COVID-19 and domestic violence (2020)
25 years of the mandate (2019)
Mistreatment and violence against women in childbirth (2019)
Violence against women in politics (2018)
Online violence against women (2018)
International legal framework (2017)
Shelters and protection orders (2017)
Establishing a femicide watch (2016)
EDVAW Platform
Femicide watch initiative
Special Rapporteur on violence against women OHCHR-UNOG, 8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneve 10, Switzerland Fax: + 41 22 917 9006 Email: ohchr-vaw@un.org
Special Rapporteur on Twitter: @UNSRVAW
The Working Group on discrimination against women and girls
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
Council of Europe
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Rapporteurship on the rights of women
The Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights
Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI)
