March 15, 2007                                             Support the Center now! CELEBRATING VICTORY ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY Countries across the globe last week observed International Women's Day, a day on which women come together to honor their struggles for equality and justice. At the Center, where every day we fight for women's rights all over the world, we marked the day by celebrating a recent landmark legal victory. The milestone decision in A.S. v. Hungary established that the Hungarian government must pay restitution to A.S., a woman who was sterilized against her will. It stands as a clear declaration in international law that a woman must be the decision-maker about her own fertility, and is one of many groundbreaking legal victories in which the Center has taken part. Click here to read about A.S. v. Hungary > > Click here to read about other recent accomplishments > > CENTER FILES CASE AGAINST GOVERNMENT OF NEPAL To pressure Nepal's government to protect women's lives, the Center and our partner, the Forum for Women, Law and Development in Katmandhu, filed a case in Nepal's Supreme Court on February 22. Nepal legalized abortion five years ago, yet high costs and lack of information mean that abortion remains a right on paper only. Complications from unsafe abortion account for an estimated 20 percent of maternal deaths in health facilities alone, not counting those who never make it to a hospital. Melissa Upreti, the Center's Legal Adviser for Asia and a Nepali citizen, is a petitioner on the case. "We are asking the government to prove its commitment to women by making safe abortion available and affordable to all women," she said. Read more > > ABORTION BANS BEING INTRODUCED STATE BY STATE State legislatures across the U.S. are considering laws designed to undermine Roe v. Wade's promise that a woman can decide whether to have a safe and legal abortion. The proposed laws are intended either to directly overturn Roe or to immediately criminalize abortion if Roe is overturned by the Supreme Court. The states facing such laws are Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas. Last year, state legislatures introduced the largest number of abortion bans in a decade. Read more > > KENYA MUST IMPROVE GIRLS' REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION, UN BODY SAYS Kenya needs to strengthen access to reproductive health services for adolescents, conduct awareness-raising campaigns to stop the practice of female genital mutilation, and increase funding for comprehensive sex education for youth, said the Committee monitoring compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). These and other recommendations reflect issues the Center and our partner, the Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya, raised in a shadow letter we submitted to the Committee. Read more > >