Around the world
Since its launching, in 2006, the Sexuality Policy Watch website has circulated relevant information on sexual politics trends, events and actors around the world. This investment has resulted in a rich archive of global and national sexual politics.
One main feature of this database is that it is not confined to specific areas or issues. It encompasses information on abortion, sexual and reproductive rights, sex work, sexual violence, gender and women’s rights, HIV and AIDs; and emphasizes materials and analysis that contribute to locate these issues in relation to the political economy of sexuality. Since 2013, key facts, events and trends are selected and highlighted in monthly announcements.
Sexual Politics in Times of Pandemic – 2021 Retrospective
>>> Download the PDF version here. First Thoughts The last 2020 SPW special hypothesized that during 2021, because of vaccines, Covid-19 would no longer be our main topic, but that did not prove to be the case. The pandemic followed its devastating course with the emergence of new, more aggressive variants, and the loss of […]
Read moreColombia Supreme Court’s decision on abortion: compilation on the February 2022 rulling
Landmark Decision on Colombia Abortion Rights – Human Rights Watch Statements from the Center for Reproductive Rights on the Constitutional Court Decision Decriminalizing Abortion in Colombia – Center for Reproductive Rights Colombia Decriminalizes Abortion – New York Times Colombia legalises abortion in move celebrated as ‘historic victory’ by campaigners – The Guardian Colombia decriminalises abortion […]
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Decriminalization with exclusion: Ecuador’s new rape abortion law
By Manuela Lavinas Picq. This law is a victory for regulating the right to abortion due to rape, even allowing survivors to avoid police procedures, but advocates of decriminalization contested exclusionary aspects that will affect the most vulnerable. The dark side of the law? The deadlines.
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COVID-19 and the production of ignorance: Richard Parker’s article
by Richard Parker Article originally published at Radis The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many lessons in the domain of public health. One of the most important, however, has perhaps received the least attention: the question of ignorance. Like knowledge, ignorance is a construction. Ignorance is not simply lack of knowledge. […]
Read moreTransnational activities of the Ministry on Women, Family and Human Rights
At the beginning of September, 2021, although she was on vacation, The Brazilian National Secretary for the Family, Angela Gandra went to Portugal and Spain. In this latter country, she participated in a meeting of Catholic political leaders and met with a conservative judge of the Constitutional Court. Then, she visited in Ukraine to attend […]
Read morePolitics meets biopolitics in the Brazilian catastrophe
Since our first special, we have read the pandemic through the lenses of biopolitics, as to analyze how its management has activated and even updated state mechanisms of surveillance and the large- scale management of the population. In the June 2020 issue, we devoted special attention to the debate provoked by the controversial article by […]
Read moreResearch: Politics of fear in Brazil: Far-right conspiracy theories on COVID-19
In this article, we present an analysis of narratives mobilised by extreme right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, from March to December 2020. Our research indicates that, throughout that year, despite changes in the categories used, fear was continuously mobilised by the Brazilian president connecting an […]
Read moreUnpack the reconfiguration of population policy in China – Cai Yping
In September 2021, the Chinese government releases the new policy guideline on women, namely “Program for Women and Development (2021-2030)”. In the area of “Women and Health”, it states to “reduce abortions for non-medical reasons” as one of the strategies to meet the health target. This language triggers the vigilance of many feminists and SRHR […]
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Putin’s Anti-Gay War on Ukraine
by Emil Edenborg In Vladimir Putin’s speech on February 24, announcing what would be a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine (in his official Orwellian euphemism, a “special military operation” in the Donbas region), a whole paragraph was dedicated to the West’s supposed undermining of “traditional values”: Properly speaking, the attempts to use us in their own interests never ceased until […]
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“Gender ideology” and anti-vaccine politics in Brazil: the misuse of the hotline run by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights has been contested at the Supreme Court
On February 8th, 2021, the National Confederation of Workers in Education and the National Confederation of Workers in Health presented a petition to the Brazilian Supreme requesting judicial measures to be taken in relation to nefarious instrumentalization of the hotline run by the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights (MMFDH). The lawsuit interrogates the […]
Read moreAnti-gender politics and policies in Brazil: Submitted to the Mandate of the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In order to more fully understand the political and policy atmosphere in relation to gender, sexuality and human rights in Brazil it is necessary to offer a sketchy bird’s eye view of the evolution of related politics and policies in preceding decades. One first aspect to be highlighted is that these political and policy domains […]
Read moreBrazil as a hub of anti-gender transnational politics (August – October 2021)
In September, Pope Francis visited Hungary and Slovakia, and in the latter country, in a conversation with a group of Jesuits, he repeated recommendations on the pastoral welcome of homosexuals while, at the same reiterating his criticism of “gender,” which, he said, is an abstract concept that “exerts a diabolical fascination because it is not […]
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Sexual Politics in Times of Pandemic: August-October 2021
Since July, when we published our last Special Edition, as you will see in this issue, a lot has happened in the pandemic and in the field of sexual politics. Once again, the pages that follow are quite dense, but we remind you that the sections are relatively autonomous and can be read separately.
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An interview with Massimo Prearo: The Zan Law failure, the neo – Catholic movement and Vatican’s Politics:
In the last Special Issue of last year we have done a brief assessment of Vatican politics. Concomitantly, we published an article by the Italian political scientist Massimo Prearo on Pope Francis’s speech act on same sex marriage that, in October 2020, had major media impact. Since then, in many other occasions, the pope has […]
Read moreVirginia and New Jersey governor election: compilation on sexual politics issues
Rough Night for Democrats Exposes the Party’s Weakness – NY Times Were the Ultra-Conservative “Mama Bears” Youngkin’s Secret Weapon? – Mother Jones Lessons From Virginia: You Can’t Ignore the Civil War – The Nation Opinion | One Lesson of Virginia? The Culture War Still Works. – Politico How did Republicans turn critical race theory into […]
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