As deliberations kick off, the muted voices of suffering women across the world will have long been silenced by painful haemorrhage, unsafe abortion, maimed because of ruptured uterus and cursed to death because of cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and leaking because of the fistula problem.

"This is not right. Girls as young as 12 years are involved in unprotected sex and they are not allowed to use condoms or any other no family planning,” said Mercy, a student from University of Nairobi. “It’s unfortunate that when these girls give birth they abandon the children in hospitals.”

Mercy is not sorry about this state of affairs and argues “if the government insists that it wants to get control of my body, it should also take care of abandoned children”.

During a session The Refusal Of Reproductive Rights Of Women Is A Form Of Genocide: Towards A Global Action Depriving Motherhood, speakers agreed that reproductive rights was a global issue.

Like a thread that strings together the North and South, from Nepal, where women chew pieces of glasses to secure abortion, to USA where poor women seek sterilisation as an alternative and to Africa where many young women die as a result of unsafe abortion, one thing that came out clear during the discussion was that every woman has a right to reproductive health information.

“We cannot continue to watch when our young people are being defiled by old men in the name of getting HIV/AIDS cure,” said Pauline from Uganda.

Pauline blames the bad situation on African governments that tend to focus on politics at the expense of social issues.

“We need to focus on social rights issues because this is where young people get the information that enables them make the right choices on reproductive health issues.

“Women have the right to information,” stated Pracash Bhattasai from the Youth Action, Nepal. “It’s a high time policy makers initiated reproductive health programmes in rural areas.”

Considering that reproductive health issues are always in the margin, and with the debate having been hijacked by political fundamentalists and neo-liberal politics many activists are worried that achieving better health for every woman might take a long time to come.

“But that is not going to stop us from demanding fundamental change when it comes to issues on reproductive health rights,” said Tamara Idrobo Tapia, membership liaison officer with the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights.

In the era of HIV/AIDS prevalence, the policy brief by the initiative for sexual and reproductive rights in health reforms, a women’s health project in South Africa states that, the government has a responsibility to ensure that sexual and reproductive health services are provided.

And with the on-going debate on health reform, arguments are based on the fact that sexual and reproductive health benefits society as a whole, not just the individuals who receive them.

Progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights is necessary for sustainable development and the achievement of gender equality.

In most African countries, public sectors remain under-funded, understaffed and poorly managed, while in some cases, access the health care is next to impossible.

Action pointed out during the session ranged from the right to know sexuality issues and sexual rights by all young people to the need to mobilise community and grassroots people to understand the magnitude of the problem when it comes to reproductive health issues. It also emerged that there is need to be aware of issues beyond advocacy.