Speech by minister Schreinemacher at the EU-AU Summit side event ‘Getting back on track: realizing gender equality and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights’
Opening speech by Liesje Schreinemacher, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, during the SRHR side event Getting back on track: realizing gender equality and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights at the EU-AU Summit, 15 February 2022.
Your Excellencies, distinguished guests and listeners,
It’s my pleasure to welcome you to this event on gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights, or SRHR.
I’d like to thank Sweden and the European Commission for being our co-hosts today.
This is a timely event, because we need to get back on track when it comes to realizing gender equality and universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
SRHR is essential in helping young people make informed choices about their health and lives.
Choices about whether – and if so, when – they want to have children…
…and how big they want their families to be.
Choices that can drastically change the course of their lives.
Their children’s lives. And their societies as a whole.
So gender equality and SRHR are key conditions for sustainable development.
With this event we’re aiming to accelerate more coordinated and effective efforts for the health and wellbeing of young people, and women and girls in particular.
Because we share the conviction that faster progress towards gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights is necessary and urgent.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only increased the urgency.
Because it threatens to reverse some of the hard-won progress we’ve made in recent decades.
COVID has disrupted health services, making it more difficult for many women to access contraceptives and maternal healthcare.
Worldwide, millions of girls have been out of school. And school closures and economic hardship threaten to force more girls into marriage.
During lockdowns, gender-based violence numbers have made all the alarm bells ring.
Funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights has been diverted, as many donors and governments have shifted their focus to other health-related challenges.
I’m also very concerned about the pushback against SRHR that we’re seeing at all levels. At the expense of the health of young people, especially women and girls.
That’s why we need to act now, and use the momentum of the post-COVID recovery to get back on track.
And to follow up on our commitments to achieve gender equality and SRHR for all.
Commitments that we collectively agreed on in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development.
The Netherlands is ready to take action. We already invest around 500 million euros a year to help strengthen health systems and improve access to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Especially in Africa.
Let’s turn the pandemic into an opportunity.
An opportunity to highlight the importance of strong, resilient and universally accessible national health systems.
I’m looking forward to the other contributions and to engaging in a dialogue with all of you.
And I’m delighted to see such strong young leaders participating in this event, such as Levi Singh and Amour Dieu Donné. Thank you for sharing your stories, concerns and insights.
Let’s get back on track. To realize our common goals towards gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.
Thank you.