Declaration of Sexual Rights

The Declaration of Sexual Rights is a statement on sexual rights that was first proclaimed at the 13th World Congress of Sexology, run by the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS), in Valencia 1997. A revised version was approved in 1999 in Hong Kong by the WAS General Assembly, and reaffirmed in 2008. It was revised and expanded in 2014.

Latest version

The 2014 version names 16 positions:

1. The right to equality and non-discrimination
2. The right to life, liberty, and security of the person
3. The right to autonomy and bodily integrity
4. The right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
5. The right to be free from all forms of violence and coercion
6. The right to privacy
7. The right to the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual health; with the possibility of pleasurable, satisfying, and safe sexual experiences
8. The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its application
9. The right to information
10. The right to education and the right to comprehensive sexuality education
11. The right to enter, form, and dissolve marriage and similar types of relationships based on equality and full and free consent
12. The right to decide whether to have children, the number and spacing of children, and to have the information and the means to do so
13. The right to the freedom of thought, opinion, and expression
14. The right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly
15. The right to participation in public and political life
16. The right to access to justice, remedies, and redress

Original version

The original, 1999 Declaration of Sexual Rights contained 11 positions:

1. The right to sexual freedom
2. The right to sexual autonomy, sexual integrity, and safety of the sexual body
3. The right to sexual privacy
4. The right to sexual equity
5. The right to sexual pleasure
6. The right to emotional sexual expression
7. The right to sexually associate freely
8. The right to make free and responsible reproductive choices
9. The right to sexual information based upon scientific inquiry
10. The right to comprehensive sexuality education
11. The right to sexual health care

External links

• Declaration of Sexual Rights (2014)