Key Details
Recognizing Reproductive Violence within the Women, Peace and Security Agenda examines how reproductive harm can be overlooked when conflict-response systems focus chiefly on sexual violence.
What the term covers: Intentional acts or omissions that harm people by interfering with their reproductive autonomy or targeting their reproductive capacity. Examples include forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilisation and forced contraception.
Why it is distinct: Reproductive and sexual violence can overlap, but reproductive violence need not involve sexual assault. Deliberately blocking reproductive healthcare or menstrual supplies can also cause reproductive harm.
Where the gap matters: The UN’s Women, Peace and Security agenda covers prevention, protection, participation, and relief and recovery. The paper argues that reproductive violence needs explicit attention across all four.
What the authors propose: A common definition, better documentation and early warning, protection of reproductive healthcare, removal of barriers to survivors’ participation, and long-term care and reparations.
Harm Can Be Missed When It Is Recorded Only as Sexual Violence
UN Security Council Resolution 1325 established the Women, Peace and Security agenda in 2000. Its work on conflict-related sexual violence has helped make those crimes more visible. The paper argues that this focus does not always capture control over whether and how people can reproduce—including acts with no sexual element, such as enforced sterilisation or deliberate obstruction of healthcare.
That distinction affects practical responses. If reproductive harm is treated as incidental to another violation, investigators may miss its motive, health services may not address its lasting effects, and survivors may fall outside justice or compensation programmes.
Recognition Changes Prevention and Protection
Patterns of forced pregnancy, sterilisation or attacks on reproductive capacity may help investigators identify persecution or attempts to destroy a community. The paper therefore calls for reproductive motives and consequences to be documented in conflict monitoring and early-warning work.
It also asks humanitarian and protection efforts to examine whether the loss of maternal care, contraception or menstrual supplies results from limited capacity or deliberate restriction. That requires attention to healthcare facilities and supplies, as well as to direct acts of violence.
Recovery Extends Beyond Immediate Medical Care
Reproductive injuries and their consequences may emerge years later. Forced pregnancy, infertility, stigma and disrupted family relationships can also restrict survivors’ education, work and participation in peacebuilding. Children born of conflict-related sexual violence may face barriers to birth registration and public services.
The paper consequently calls for long-term healthcare and reparations that recognise reproductive harm, alongside support that enables survivors and affected children to participate in community life.
What Is Reproductive Autonomy?
Reproductive autonomy is the ability to make free and informed decisions about reproduction — including whether and when to have children — without coercion. In this paper, violence against that autonomy includes both direct coercion and deliberate acts that prevent access to essential reproductive care.
Policy Relevance
The paper does not assess India or propose India-specific measures. Its relevance lies in how India approaches women’s protection through international peacekeeping, humanitarian engagement and conflict-related diplomacy. For those activities, the practical question is whether training, documentation and assistance can identify reproductive harms that a sexual-violence-only category might miss.
The paper’s recommendations also offer a test for recovery efforts: are survivors’ longer-term health needs and access to remedies recognised, including when the harm did not involve sexual assault? Applying that lens would require attention to consent, confidential care and the needs of people affected by displacement and conflict.
Follow the Full Research Paper Here: UN Women and Global Justice Center, Recognizing Reproductive Violence within the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.