Interact Worldwide Rights
A rights based approach to development is a framework that allows poor and marginalised people to demand as a 'right' the basic conditions that allow them to live in dignity. A rights based approach requires development action from the international community and national governments to correct injustice and protect human rights. It is different to 'charity' as the recipients are entitled to demand what is asked. Human Rights are inalienable and universal, ie. they cannot be taken away and they belong to everyone.
At Interact Worldwide we see all rights as equally important but focus our work on particular rights that affect our issues of sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, these include:
- Right to reproductive health care
(such as measures to promote safe motherhood, right to safe abortion) - Right to self determination
(such as the right to plan one's family, to be free from all forms of violence, to marry freely and without coercion) - Right to a safe and pleasurable sex life
(such as right to information related to sexuality, right to freely choose your sexual partner) - HIV related rights
(such as right to equality and non-discrimination, to participate in political and development processes, to privacy, to have a safe pleasurable sex life and the choice to bear children)
Human Rights legislation facilitates the exercising of rights and is a powerful tool for demanding change. Some of the most important declarations and pieces of legislation on our issues are: Greater Involvement of People Living with Aids (GIPA), International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing).
Interact works with particularly marginalised people, who often suffer the most rights abuses. Groups such as men who have sex with men, sex workers, HIV positive people, intravenous drug users and rural women have particular barriers to living out their reproductive and sexual rights.
