The United Nations Human Rights Committee issued a ruling last month with the potential to expand reproductive rights in Ecuador and Nicaragua. Although it’s unclear how each country will implement the UN mandates handed down, the ruling is a step forward for a growing reproductive rights movement working to decriminalize abortion in Latin America.
In 2016, Planned Parenthood Global, Amnesty International, and other Latin American activism groups came together to form the “Son Niñas, No Madres” (Girls, Not Mothers) movement. They have filed legal cases before the UN Human Rights Committee against Ecuador and Nicaragua, representative of a regional pattern of girls forced to become mothers due to sexual violence and a lack of access to reproductive health services like abortion in 2019.
