On August 8, 15 Belgian associations, including Doctors of the World, but also the feminist association Le Monde according to women or the Center for Laïque and the Federation of pluralist family planning centerssent a letter to a letter to the public health ministers Franck Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) and Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation Maxime Prévot (engaged) in order to prevent the stock from being transferred to France.
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“For the moment, our request is that the stock of drugs in Belgium is requisitioned by the Belgian authorities and that their destruction is prevented. Once this CAP has been crossed, we will go to negotiation on the use of these drugs. They could be used both in Belgium and internationally. We ask the Belgian government, which has announced that it has put health as a priority for its national and external cooperation program, to act. We worry about being faced with the creation of a dangerous precedent if donor countries can, a simple change in policy, influence the effective exercise of the fundamental rights of the populations. As a civil society in the Belgian democratic context, we have the obligation to alert and challenge our government on this point“, Underlines Pilar Martinez.
Selma Benkhelifa is one of the lawyers in charge of this file. “Our main legal argument is that it is an abuse of property rights. USAID owns this stock, we do not deny it, but we question the fact of destroying goods of public interest, medical supplies“She specifies to grenades. “The European regulations relating to medical devices indicates that contraceptive means are considered as medical products. The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, ratified by Belgium, also indicates that states must take all appropriate measures to guarantee women access to health care and the means of family planning, contraception is obvious. contraceptives is contrary to the obligation to guarantee their access to women“, She continues. Belgian associations therefore ask ministers that urgent measures be taken.
We contacted the cabinet of the Minister of Public Health Frank Vandenbroucke who refers to his colleague from Foreign Affairs Maxime Prévot. Also contacted, the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs did not answer us.
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