Decolonial Futures: Countdown 2030 Europe’s Commitment to Change

Colonial Echoes: How Europe’s Colonial Past Shapes Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Today


The work of global civil society in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) has significantly enhanced health outcomes and expanded freedom of choice, particularly for women, girls, and the LGBTQIA+ community, enabling significant steps toward bodily autonomy.

However, despite significant global progress on sexual and reproductive rights, the SRHR field is overshadowed by a colonial legacy. As SRHR professionals working in a European context, striving to take an intersectional, anti-racist and decolonial* approach, we must confront this history and the coloniality* that persists in the health sector, and recognise how it is reproduced and maintained by the social and economic power structures we work within. Acknowledging and educating ourselves on the colonial roots of the SRHR sector is essential to better understand and address present-day social justice issues.

For instance, colonial powers, both during and after independence, oppressed, subjugated and abused colonised people – most often black and brown – particularly by violating their bodily autonomy. These atrocities included forced abortions, sterilizations, and unethical experiments, often in the name of population control or medical advancement, and often to the benefit of white women in the Global Minority* world. As Professor Anuj Kapilashrami aptly asks, “Which women have been the Guinea pigs for which women’s liberation?”

In the mid-1900s, powerful governments in the Global Minority framed population growth in Global Majority* countries as both a security threat and a root cause of poverty. Using this narrative, they imposed a population control paradigm in the emerging ‘development’ field, instrumentalizing family planning as a tool to solve ‘development problems’. This led, on the one hand, to the implementation of coercive family planning campaigns, while on the other, it contributed to fertility rate becoming and remaining an indicator of a country’s level of ‘development'[1].

Colonialism also imposed a Western, Christian, heteropatriarchal value system on colonised people worldwide.

Colonialism also imposed a Western, Christian, heteropatriarchal value system on Indigenous and colonised people worldwide, contributing to the dismantling of more fluid and inclusive understandings of sexuality and reproduction which persisted in many countries before colonisation. While former colonial powers, through processes of secularization, have gradually reformed these laws to reflect progressive values, colonial legacies persist in shaping restrictive laws that limit bodily autonomy in many formerly colonised countries.

The Right Thing to Do: Challenging Ongoing Coloniality in SRHR and International Cooperation

An awareness of this colonial history and an effort to establish a new paradigm for SRHR was evident in the lead-up to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in September 1994. This milestone event marked an intentional shift from concerns about rapid population growth to a stronger emphasis on individual human rights regarding sexuality and reproduction. 30 years after its adoption, the ICPD Program of Action remains a benchmark for SRHR professionals, recognising reproductive rights as fundamental human rights.

Most actors in the SRHR sector have made significant shifts away from this troubling history, adopting a human-rights based approach grounded in the fundamental right to reproductive autonomy. However, there are still valid and ongoing criticisms of the status quo within the international cooperation sector, where the majority of power over agenda-setting, programme design, knowledge creation and funding decisions remains in the Global North*. 

Embracing decoloniality means challenging the systems we have been socialised into and imagining a different way of being – one where local and indigenous knowledge systems are valued, resources are distributed equitably, and all people are equally supported and enabled to reach their full potential regardless of their positionality.

As SRHR professionals, we have a responsibility to engage critically with the colonial history of our field, acknowledging and owning the past while also working to improve the present by fostering a movement to decolonise SRHR. This involves rethinking how we work, who we work with and fundamentally who has a seat at the table when it comes to setting priorities and allocating funding. As the saying goes “if you don’t have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu”[3]. 

Without actively reflecting on the dark legacy of colonialism, educating ourselves about this history and challenging and dismantling the power structures embedded in the international cooperation sector, the SRHR field, and within our own organisations, we run the risk of perpetuating coloniality.

The sector needs to rebuild trust amongst the societies harmed by population control policies and programmes of the past which sought to limit their reproductive freedom, often coercively. These histories live on in the minds of populations affected by coloniality and can foster mistrust in the sector. Recognising this history and dealing with it directly builds our credibility as actors in the sector. Through informing ourselves, publicly acknowledging this past and working to repair the harm done, we will inevitably become better at the work we seek to do: that of supporting the reproductive freedom of all people globally.

No matter where we live, what gender we are, who we love, or how much money we have, we all deserve to be safe to walk the streets with our partner, to choose if and when to have children, and for our children to be taught about safe, healthy, and happy relationships. Upholding our commitment to provide support for SRHR in international cooperation is necessary to protect these human rights for everybody. 

Fundamentally, decolonising our work is the right thing to do. It is no longer acceptable to continue with the status quo.

As a Consortium, we are not naive in thinking we are going to solve all of the issues of coloniality in the sector, but we have a platform to exert influence and if we want to move forward with integrity, we have a responsibility to use it. 

Decolonising in Action: What We’ve Been Doing

For the past few years, the Consortium has been undergoing an intense journey to decolonise its internal and external practices within the framework of its role in the SRHR international cooperation sector. In early 2023, we established a Decoloniality Task Force to examine and reflect on the power dynamics in our sector and question whether coloniality persists in our advocacy as a Europe-based, predominantly white Consortium, whose main aim is to improve policies and increase funding for SRHR from European governments towards the Global South.

This task force facilitated monthly meetings, peer-to-peer exchanges, and consultations with external experts, which led to the creation of a 3-year Decoloniality Action Plan. The Action Plan is structured around five key pillars — Priorities, Policy positions, Power analysis, Partnerships, and People — and includes actionable measures in areas like knowledge, imagery and public communication, organizational equity, accountability, partnerships, policy, and advocacy. 

Workshops, interviews with Global Majority experts, and knowledge-building sessions laid the groundwork for this collective effort, focusing on themes such as colonial history and contemporary power dynamics in the SRHR sector. After various (un)learning sessions and a self-reflection workshop led by decolonial experts, the Consortium introduced 10 Decolonial Guiding Principles to its work and initiated dialogue and knowledge exchange with peer organisations. We are currently finalising a language audit to evaluate the persistence of and work to remove colonial discourse from our materials, including in our language, narratives and imagery used. This commitment towards being proactively anti-racist and decolonial is monitored through ongoing assessments and ad hoc evaluations, to ensure the Consortium holds itself accountable to sustain this journey.

Concluding Reflections: A Commitment to Action

We are at the start of an exciting and transformative journey toward decolonisation, guided by integrity, reflection, solidarity and collective action. While there is still much to learn and unlearn, we hope to be part of the movement towards a truly equitable and just international cooperation sector. By working towards centering Global Majority voices and expertise in all that we do, we are reimagining our structures, our practices, and our ways of working — striving for a sector that reflects the diversity and strength of the world it serves. With our 10 Decoloniality Guiding Principles paving the way, we commit to stepping out of our comfort zones, holding ourselves accountable, and embracing the opportunity to build something better and more sustainable. The road ahead may be long, but the possibilities for real, lasting transformation are limitless—and we are here for it.


[1] World Bank, World Development Indicators.

[2] This knowledge has been brought to our attention many times by different Global Majority experts, including Afya na Haki, an African research and training institute that uses afrocentric approaches to generate knowledge and enhance advocacy capacities.

[3] This reflection was brought to us by Clemmie James (Health Poverty Action) while facilitating a decoloniality self-reflection workshop.


written by the Countdown 2030 Europe Decoloniality Task Force

illustration by Alexandra Koleva

Resources

*Read more about our decoloniality journey, including a glossary of key terms

Afya na Haki (2022). Decolonising Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Lucía Berro Pizzarossa (2018). Here to Stay: The Evolution of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in International Human Rights Law.

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