Commentary: Sexual health and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress or backlash?

The Middle East/North Africa region is diverse in many respects, including, among others, the level of development (United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2013), legal codes and secular versus religious state leadership. Health disparities are enormous, as indicated by maternal mortality ratios, which range from 7 in Qatar to 200 in Yemen (World Health Organization [WHO], United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF], United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA], & The World Bank, 2012). Despite this diversity, the region faces common challenges in securing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). These challenges include gender inequality; lack of sexuality education; social taboos and restrictions on women’s sexual autonomy, premarital and extramarital sexual activity, sexual orientation and gender identity; and harmful traditional practices, such as early and forced marriages, honour crimes and female genital mutilation, all of which jeopardise women’s and girls’ health and violate their human rights (Amado, 2005; Aoyama, 2001). In the 20 years since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), social movements across the region, especially those led by women, youth and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) groups, have been claiming sexual autonomy and sexual rights at national, regional and international levels. Feminist movements have secured legal reforms that support gender equality in civil codes in Morocco, Jordan and Egypt, and in civil and penal codes in Turkey (Ilkkaracan, 2009). The number of, and networking among, LGBTQ organisations and communities have noticeably increased. At the same time, sexuality and gender have become subjects of intense political and social struggles in the region, with conflicting implications for SRHR. Mobilisation by the Islamic religious right, which started in the 1980s and has intensified since 2001, has narrowed the space for progressive reforms in laws and policies, including in regard to sexuality. Moreover, the ‘Muslims vs. the West’ discourse, which has taken hold in all Muslim societies, encourages religious right movements to assert that sexual autonomy and rights, including many ICPD commitments, are ‘Western’ values imposed on ‘Muslim culture’. Threats to gender equality include government actions to restrict or ban legal abortion in Tunisia and Turkey. Despite the prevention of formal bans by feminist movements and