RECOMMENDATION
The State party should: (a) Take steps to expedite the adoption of the maternal and child health bill; (b) Increase access to obstetric health services for women, including prenatal and postnatal services, on all atolls and islands of the State party, in particular for rural women, by ensuring effective access to universal health insurance and by increasing the number of skilled health-care personnel; (c) Ensure age-appropriate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, including information about available contraceptive methods and family planning, in order to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and early pregnancies and remove restrictions applied in practice by health-care personnel to unmarried girls; (d) Collect data and conduct research on the prevalence of unsafe and illegal abortions, disaggregated by age and geographical location.
Recommendation No: CEDAW - 37
Recommendation Year: 2015
Recommendation Text: The State party should: (a) Take steps to expedite the adoption of the maternal and child health bill; (b) Increase access to obstetric health services for women, including prenatal and postnatal services, on all atolls and islands of the State party, in particular for rural women, by ensuring effective access to universal health insurance and by increasing the number of skilled health-care personnel; (c) Ensure age-appropriate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights, including information about available contraceptive methods and family planning, in order to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and early pregnancies and remove restrictions applied in practice by health-care personnel to unmarried girls; (d) Collect data and conduct research on the prevalence of unsafe and illegal abortions, disaggregated by age and geographical location.
Convention/Treaty Body: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 
Information Deadline:
Implementation Deadline:
Related Human Rights Articles
ICESCR Article 12 - The right to the highest attainable standard of health.
CEDAW Article 5 - Article 5 States Parties shall take all appropriate measures: (a) To modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women; (b) To ensure that family education includes a proper understanding of maternity as a social function and the recognition of the common responsibility of men and women in the upbringing and development of their children, it being understood that the interest of the children is the primordial consideration in all cases.
CEDAW Article 11 - Article 11 1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, the same rights, in particular: (a) The right to work as an inalienable right of all human beings; (b) The right to the same employment opportunities, including the application of the same criteria for selection in matters of employment; (c) The right to free choice of profession and employment, the right to promotion, job security and all benefits and conditions of service and the right to receive vocational training and retraining, including apprenticeships, advanced vocational training and recurrent training; (d) The right to equal remuneration, including benefits, and to equal treatment in respect of work of equal value, as well as equality of treatment in the evaluation of the quality of work; (e) The right to social security, particularly in cases of retirement, unemployment, sickness, invalidity and old age and other incapacity to work, as well as the right to paid leave; (f) The right to protection of health and to safety in working conditions, including the safeguarding of the function of reproduction. 2. In order to prevent discrimination against women on the grounds of marriage or maternity and to ensure their effective right to work, States Parties shall take appropriate measures: (a) To prohibit, subject to the imposition of sanctions, dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy or of maternity leave and discrimination in dismissals on the basis of marital status; (b) To introduce maternity leave with pay or with comparable social benefits without loss of former employment, seniority or social allowances; (c) To encourage the provision of the necessary supporting social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities and participation in public life, in particular through promoting the establishment and development of a network of child-care facilities; (d) To provide special protection to women during pregnancy in types of work proved to be harmful to them. 3. Protective legislation relating to matters covered in this article shall be reviewed periodically in the light of scientific and technological knowledge and shall be revised, repealed or extended as necessary.
CEDAW Article 12 - Article 12 1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services, including those related to family planning. 2. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph I of this article, States Parties shall ensure to women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.
CEDAW Article 14 - Article 14 1. States Parties shall take into account the particular problems faced by rural women and the significant roles which rural women play in the economic survival of their families, including their work in the non-monetized sectors of the economy, and shall take all appropriate measures to ensure the application of the provisions of the present Convention to women in rural areas. 2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in rural areas in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, that they participate in and benefit from rural development and, in particular, shall ensure to such women the right: (a) To participate in the elaboration and implementation of development planning at all levels; (b) To have access to adequate health care facilities, including information, counselling and services in family planning; (c) To benefit directly from social security programmes; (d) To obtain all types of training and education, formal and non-formal, including that relating to functional literacy, as well as, inter alia, the benefit of all community and extension services, in order to increase their technical proficiency; (e) To organize self-help groups and co-operatives in order to obtain equal access to economic opportunities through employment or self employment; (f) To participate in all community activities; (g) To have access to agricultural credit and loans, marketing facilities, appropriate technology and equal treatment in land and agrarian reform as well as in land resettlement schemes; (h) To enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply, transport and communications.
Stakeholders
Attorney General's Office (AGO) | Ministry of Health (MoH)
Relevant Articles of the Constitution
23 - Every citizen the following rights pursuant to this Constitution, and the State undertakes to achieve the progressive realisation of these rights by (b) clothing and housing; (c) good standards of health care, physical and mental; (d) a healthy and ecologically balanced environment; (e) equal access to means of communication, the State media, transportation facilities, and the natural resources of the country; (f) the establishment of a sewage system of a reasonably adequate standard on every inhabited island; (g) the establishment of an electricity system of a reasonably adequate standard on every inhabited island that is commensurate to that island.reasonable measures within its ability and resources: (a) adequate and nutritious food and clean water;
24 - Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his private communications. Every person must respect these rights with respect to others.
34A - Every person of marriageable age as determined by law has the right to marry, and to establish a family as specified in law. The family, being the natural and fundamental unit of society, is entitled to special protection by society and the State.
34B - Children must be afforded special protection as specified in law in the event of a marital breakdown of the parents.
Relevant Legislation Articles
No Relevant Legislation Articles
Relevant Regulations & Policies
No Relevant Regulations & Policies
Relevant Articles of other Human Rights Conventions
ICCPR Article 23 - The right to marry and found a family and equal rights between men and women within the marriage at its dissolution.
ICESCR Article 10 - The right to family protections, i.e., marriage only by consent, leave for new mothers and protection of children from exploitation.
ICESCR Article 12 - The right to the highest attainable standard of health.
CRC Article 18 - 1. States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern. 2. For the purpose of guaranteeing and promoting the rights set forth in the present Convention, States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of children. 3. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from child-care services and facilities for which they are eligible.
CRC Article 20 - 20 1. A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State. 2. States Parties shall in accordance with their national laws ensure alternative care for such a child. 3. Such care could include, inter alia, foster placement, kafalah of Islamic law, adoption or if necessary placement in suitable institutions for the care of children. When considering solutions, due regard shall be paid to the desirability of continuity in a child's upbringing and to the child's ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background.
CRC Article 21 - States Parties that recognize and/or permit the system of adoption shall ensure that the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration and they shall: (a) Ensure that the adoption of a child is authorized only by competent authorities who determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures and on the basis of all pertinent and reliable information, that the adoption is permissible in view of the child's status concerning parents, relatives and legal guardians and that, if required, the persons concerned have given their informed consent to the adoption on the basis of such counselling as may be necessary; (b) Recognize that inter-country adoption may be considered as an alternative means of child's care, if the child cannot be placed in a foster or an adoptive family or cannot in any suitable manner be cared for in the child's country of origin; (c) Ensure that the child concerned by inter-country adoption enjoys safeguards and standards equivalent to those existing in the case of national adoption; (d) Take all appropriate measures to ensure that, in inter-country adoption, the placement does not result in improper financial gain for those involved in it; (e) Promote, where appropriate, the objectives of the present article by concluding bilateral or multilateral arrangements or agreements, and endeavour, within this framework, to ensure that the placement of the child in another country is carried out by competent authorities or organs.
CRC Article 22 - 1. States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is seeking refugee status or who is considered a refugee in accordance with applicable international or domestic law and procedures shall, whether unaccompanied or accompanied by his or her parents or by any other person, receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance in the enjoyment of applicable rights set forth in the present Convention and in other international human rights or humanitarian instruments to which the said States are Parties. 2. For this purpose, States Parties shall provide, as they consider appropriate, co-operation in any efforts by the United Nations and other competent intergovernmental organizations or non-governmental organizations co-operating with the United Nations to protect and assist such a child and to trace the parents or other members of the family of any refugee child in order to obtain information necessary for reunification with his or her family. In cases where no parents or other members of the family can be found, the child shall be accorded the same protection as any other child permanently or temporarily deprived of his or her family environment for any reason , as set forth in the present Convention.
CRC Article 23 - 1. States Parties recognize that a mentally or physically disabled child should enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child's active participation in the community. 2. States Parties recognize the right of the disabled child to special care and shall encourage and ensure the extension, subject to available resources, to the eligible child and those responsible for his or her care, of assistance for which application is made and which is appropriate to the child's condition and to the circumstances of the parents or others caring for the child. 3. Recognizing the special needs of a disabled child, assistance extended in accordance with paragraph 2 of the present article shall be provided free of charge, whenever possible, taking into account the financial resources of the parents or others caring for the child, and shall be designed to ensure that the disabled child has effective access to and receives education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreation opportunities in a manner conducive to the child's achieving the fullest possible social integration and individual development, including his or her cultural and spiritual development 4. States Parties shall promote, in the spirit of international cooperation, the exchange of appropriate information in the field of preventive health care and of medical, psychological and functional treatment of disabled children, including dissemination of and access to information concerning methods of rehabilitation, education and vocational services, with the aim of enabling States Parties to improve their capabilities and skills and to widen their experience in these areas. In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries.
Related Recommendations of other Treaty Bodies
No Related Recommendations of other Treaty Bodies
Related SDGs
No Related SDGs
Categories
Health , Marriage and family relations , Children deprived of a family environment , Family environment