The 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive, Sexual Health & Rights

13/09/2026

Ahead of International Day of Older Persons (1st October) and upcoming Inter-Governmental Working Group on Human Rights of Older Persons meeting (26-30 October), read insights from SHE & Rights speakers:

✅ Khalid Hassine, Secretary of the Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) on the Human Rights of Older Persons at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

✅ Shobha Shukla, who participates in IGWG as a person with lived experience and Chairs Development Justice for Older Persons, and is the Founder Executive Director of CNS and host of SHE & Rights

https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/09/longer-lives-equal-rights-why-ageing.html

CNS is committed to rights-based communication, policy and advocacy for development justice (health, gender, economic, social, and climate justices)

12/09/2026

Join us on 18th September: 👉Closing the gap for safe abortion and other sexual and reproductive health and rights👈

Register now! https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/rN9PrgOTSASCDIvvVFT0_g

Organised ahead of International Safe Abortion Day (28th September), World Contraception Day (26th September) and to mark Equal Pay Day (18th September), this SHE & Rights session has a special highlight: Sharing of “Adding It Up 2024: Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in Asia” report findings and Guttmacher's interactive costing tools, and Guttmacher’s Family Planning Investment Impact Calculator and Safe Abortion Calculator.

This 50th session marks 2nd anniversary of SHE & Rights!

Speakers:
🟠 Dr Elizabeth A Sully, Director of International Research, Guttmacher Institute
🟡 Riju Dhakal, Programme Officer, The Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW)
🟢 Nawmi Naz Chowdhury, Executive Director, Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR)
🔵 Jane Nyanjom, Reproductive Health Network Kenya
🟣 Shobha Shukla, SHE & Rights Coordinator and Host and CNS Executive Director

This SHE & Rights is hosted by Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI) and CNS with partners including Guttmacher, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Asian Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW), and Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health, Gender and Development Justice (APCAT Media).

06/09/2026

सतत विकास लक्ष्यों को हासिल करने के लिए अब केवल 52 महीने बचे हैं। लेकिन जेंडर समानता और स्वास्थ्य अधिकारों से जुड़े लक्ष्यों पर दुनिया की गति चिंताजनक रूप से धीमी है। कानूनी रूप से बाध्यकारी संधियों, अंतरराष्ट्रीय समझौतों और दशकों की वैश्विक प्रतिबद्धताओं से हासिल प्रगति, अब बढ़ते और बहुरूपी अधिकार-विरोधी अभियान के निशाने पर है।

इन अधिकार-विरोधी अभियानों को आगे बढ़ाने वाली ताकतें बेहद सुनियोजित ढंग से ‘राष्ट्रीय संप्रभुता’, ‘पारिवारिक मूल्य’, ‘संस्कृति’ और ‘धर्म’ जैसे शब्दों की आड़ में अपने एजेंडे को बढ़ा रही हैं। ये शब्द सुनने में सहज और स्वीकार्य लगते हैं, लेकिन इनके जरिए महिलाओं की समानता, अपने शरीर पर अधिकार और स्वास्थ्य संबंधी अधिकारों को मजबूत करने वाले कदमों का विरोध या उन्हें कमजोर करने की कोशिश हो रही है।

[ English ] सतत विकास लक्ष्यों को हासिल करने के लिए अब केवल 52 महीने बचे हैं। लेकिन जेंडर समानता और स्वास्थ्य अधिकारों से ज....

06/09/2026

🌐 With just 52 months left to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, the world is already falling dramatically short on goals related to gender equality and health rights. Decades of progress secured through legally binding treaties and other international agreements and commitments, are being threatened by a growing anti-rights backlash.

Well coordinated anti-rights forces are invoking seemingly benign and reassuring words like 'national sovereignty', 'family values', 'culture' and 'religion' to oppose or dilute measures intended to advance women's equality, bodily autonomy and health rights.

🌐Insights from:
✅Dr Robert Eno, Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights | African Union
✅Rehema Namukose, Senior Regional Programme Officer for sub-Saharan Africa, Musawah, Uganda
✅Samah Hadid, Global Executive Director, Musawah
✅Fatou Bintou Sallah, Strengthening Regional Mechanism (SRM) Associate, Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA); and earlier served Gambia’s judiciary as First-Class Magistrate
✅Vimbai Kapurura, Executive Director, Girls Not Brides, and Founder Executive Director, Women Unlimited Eswatini
✅Shobha Shukla, Coordinator and Host of SHE & Rights; Founder Executive Director, CNS

🌐 Daily Good Morning Kashmir, India (op-ed page, 6 September 2026)
https://epaper.dailygoodmorningkashmir.com/epaper/edition/1916/gmk-september/page/5

🌐 C N S
https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/09/when-family-culture-and-sovereignty-are.html

05/09/2026

With just 52 months left to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, the world is already falling dramatically short on goals related to gender equality and health rights. Decades of progress secured through legally binding treaties and other international agreements and commitments, are being threatened by a growing anti-rights backlash.

Well coordinated anti-rights forces are invoking seemingly benign and reassuring words like 'national sovereignty', 'family values', 'culture' and 'religion' to oppose or dilute measures intended to advance women's equality, bodily autonomy and health rights.

🌐Insights from:
✅Dr Robert Eno, Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
✅Rehema Namukose, Senior Regional Programme Officer for sub-Saharan Africa, Musawah, Uganda
✅Samah Hadid, Global Executive Director, Musawah
✅Fatou Bintou Sallah, Strengthening Regional Mechanism (SRM) Associate, Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA); and earlier served Gambia’s judiciary as First-Class Magistrate
✅Vimbai Kapurura, Executive Director, Girls Not Brides, and Founder Executive Director, Women Unlimited Eswatini
✅Shobha Shukla, Coordinator and Host of SHE & Rights; Founder Executive Director, CNS

https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/09/when-family-culture-and-sovereignty-are.html

CNS is committed to rights-based communication, policy and advocacy for development justice (health, gender, economic, social, and climate justices)

02/09/2026

🌏 A 20-hospital, 3-year Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study of over 150,000 patients finds that carbapenem drug-resistant infections are driving up both deaths and treatment costs.

The study authored by Dr Kamini Walia, Dr Sonam Vijay, Dr Nitin Bansal, et al, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia (Volume 53, October 2026), analysed data from 20 tertiary-care hospitals across India between April 2022 and April 2025. Dr Kamini Walia serves as a senior scientist at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), heads its Descriptive Research Division and leads ICMR on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

🌏 Daily Good Morning Kashmir, India (op-ed page, 2 September 2026)
https://epaper.dailygoodmorningkashmir.com/epaper/edition/1912/gmk-september/page/5

🌏 C N S
https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/09/when-last-resort-antibiotic-fails.html

31/08/2026

👀 Watch the recording of SHE & Rights session on the theme: 👉Countering anti-rights pushes and upholding human right to health and gender equality👈

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjNBgOEppWI

👉👀Watch and 🎧listen to specific presentations and speakers:

🌀Dr Robert Eno, Registrar of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights | African Union
- Watch 6:46 - 24:50 of the recording

🌀Rehema Namukose, Senior Regional Programme Officer for sub-Saharan Africa, Musawah, Uganda
- Watch 24:51 - 37:33 of the recording

🌀Samah Hadid, Global Executive Director, Musawah
- Watch 37:34 - 45:29 of the recording

🌀Fatou Bintou Sallah, Strengthening Regional Mechanism (SRM) Associate, Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA); and earlier served Gambia’s judiciary as First-Class Magistrate
- Watch 45:30 - 1:00:19 of the recording

🌀Vimbai Kapurura, Executive Director, Girls Not Brides, and Founder Executive Director, Women Unlimited Eswatini
- Watch 1:00:20 - 1:12:56 of the recording

🌀Khaled Hassine, Secretary, Intergovernmental Working Group on the Human Rights of Older Persons, Equality and Non-Discrimination Branch, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
- Watch 1:12:57 - 1:29:41 of the recording

🌀Shobha Shukla, Coordinator and Host of SHE & Rights; Founder Executive Director, CNS

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30/08/2026

: Question facing the world is NO LONGER whether gender equality and the right to health are 'worthy aspirations.' The question is whether governments will finally treat them as what they are: 👉rights owed to every human being👈 + non-negotiable, indivisible and non-reversible.

And, as "Justice Unbound" (book published by Eliva Press and authored by CNS founder and feminist leader Shobha Shukla) makes clear, rights delayed, denied or rolled back are not merely policy failures. They are 👉failures of justice👈

Justice Unbound, is both 👉a record of resistance and a roadmap for the action required👈 The question now is whether leaders at 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will listen—and deliver.

✅ Central Chronicle, India (Sunday Features, 30 August 2026)
https://centralchronicle.com/epaper/archives/2026-08-30/ccpaper8.pdf

✅ C N S
https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/08/justiceunbound-launches-as-shobha.html

28/08/2026

In a forceful address ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 elections, gender justice leader Shobha Shukla declared that inclusive democracy is not a side issue - it is a core gender justice demand. Women form roughly half of humanity and a large share of voters, yet they hold only a fraction of real political power. Speaking at a session organised by the Moment for Women Alliance and African Girls Empowerment Network (The AGE Network), Shobha warned that formal voting rights mean little when women remain locked out of the rooms where laws are written and budgets decided.

The numbers that shame democracy:
https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/08/truth-they-do-not-want-you-to-know-half.html

CNS is committed to rights-based communication, policy and advocacy for development justice (health, gender, economic, social, and climate justices)

27/08/2026

✅ Some of the most important lessons from the recently concluded AIDS 2026 were learnt 👉not inside the conference halls, but on the steep hillsides of dangerous favelas👈 (urban slums) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Favelas in Rio de Janeiro are dense, informal urban communities where over a million people live across more than 1,000 such settlements. Quite a few of them are considered dangerous, some heavily controlled by armed drug-trafficking factions and sites of violent police operations. I could visit one such favela: Morro dos Prazeres in Santa Teresa neighbourhood.

✅ Central Chronicle, India (op-ed page, 27 August 2026)
https://centralchronicle.com/epaper/archives/2026-08-27/ccpaper6.pdf

✅ C N S
https://www.citizen-news.org/2026/08/from-hills-of-rio-how-communities-in.html