State of World Population 2021: My Body is My Own – Claiming the right to autonomy and self-determination

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released its annual State of World Population report titled My Body is My Own – Claiming the right to autonomy and self-determination in April 2021. The first such report was published in 1978.The report emphasises the importance of upholding the right to bodily autonomy, integrity and self-determination. Bodily autonomy is defined as the power and agency to make choices about one’s body without fear of violence or coercion. The report discusses the factors limiting women’s bodily autonomy and explains how the systematic deprivation of such autonomy reinforces patriarchal inequalities and violence. “Real, sustained progress largely depends on uprooting gender inequality and all forms of discrimination and transforming the social and economic structures that maintain them,” the report notes.The 164-page publication presents its findings and positions over six chapters that cover the link between women’s bodily autonomy and their control over other spheres of life (Chapter 1); their power to make decisions about healthcare, contraception and sex (Chapter 2); the ways in which they are denied bodily autonomy and integrity (Chapter 3); international frameworks that provide the foundations for such rights (Chapter 4); the role of law in protecting and oppressing bodily autonomy (Chapter 5); and the importance of bodily autonomy and agency for women, girls and marginalised social groups (Chapter 6).