Reproductive rights are human rights, as is having access to clean water, the freedom to express yourself, and the right to govern over your own life. On a day-to-day basis, most people will not face a direct assault on their human rights. However, for some, each new day brings with it a brutal, intentional attack that is intended to violate multiple basic rights. 

This is the daily reality endured by thousands of people who are facing, or fleeing conflict. 

With over 5 million residents, and with 1.6 million people under the age of 25, reproductive rights in New Zealand are a crucial aspect of the wider healthcare system.

Refugee is a word that is defined by the 1951 Refugee Convention as “someone who is unable and unwilling to return to their country of origin to avail herself of the protection of her country of nationality owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

“Health care isn’t controversial, it’s a Human Right”
~ MSP Gillian Mackay

Here is a story about a 15-year-old boy called Rifat living in the city of Aleppo in Syria in 2016. Since 2011, Syria has been in a civil war, and the residents of Aleppo, like all Syrians, were living with the effects of the war.

During one of my classes at the University of Stirling, we were asked what our decision would be if we had the power to grant asylum to a woman seeking asylum in our country on the grounds of consistent domestic violence from her husband. Being a woman and coming from a background where multiple women have died as a result of domestic violence, either directly or indirectly, I naturally want to offer her respite, but I also know that the answer depends on the substantive laws of both my country and her home country.