PAKISTAN-ABORTION-TBs-CESCR

Concluding Observations on Report 1 (2017) (Link)

Sexual and reproductive health

77. The Committee is concerned that abortion is criminalized in the State party except when the life of a mother is at risk, which has led to a very high incidence of unsafe clandestine abortions. This has in turn led to many women suffering from life-threatening complications that in more than 5 per cent of cases have resulted in death. It is also concerned that about half of pregnancies are not intended and that women have limited access to sexual and reproductive health services and information thereon.

78. The Committee recommends that the State party:

(a) Amend its legislation on abortion to ensure its compatibility with other fundamental rights, such as women’s rights to life and physical and mental health, that it broaden the permitted circumstances for legal abortion and that it not make women undergoing abortion criminally liable;

(b) Ensure that women are able to easily access post-abortion health-care services;

(c) Take effective measures to empower women to decide upon the number and spacing of births;

(d) Improve women’s and men’s access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, including by making contraceptives available and accessible to all and placing emergency contraceptives on the list of essential medicines;

(e) Consider the Committee’s general comment No. 22 (2016) on the right to sexual and reproductive health.

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