Talking rights or what is right? Understandings and strategies around sexual, reproductive and abortion rights in Nicaragua

This paper explores how women’s rights are being produced and reproduced in the Nicaraguan context and in the light of the recent change to the abortion law. It highlights differences in understandings of rights, not just between the state and/or its associated actors on the one hand and the women’s movements on the other, but also within the women’s movements. At the same time the paper notes similarities in the discourses of apparently very diverse actors, in that they have limited engagement with ideas of women’s autonomy and freedom to choose as a ‘right’. The paper suggests that a common understanding of what constitutes gendered rights, even between women activists, cannot be assumed. The paper draws on a number of research projects conducted by the authors for the Nicaraguan feminist NGO, Puntos de Encuentro, around rights. In particular it draws on a series of interviews with women leaders and an internal reflection process undertaken in Puntos in 2005 (Bradshaw 2006; Bradshaw and Criquillion 2007) and on more recent semi-structured interviews with Nicaraguan women and focus group discussions with NGOs working for gender equality, undertaken during the summer of 2007 (Castillo and Wilson 2007; Wilson and Castillo 2007).