IPOV – Respectful Care supports an activity on respectful, safe and humanised perinatal care
May 26, 20261. Introducing the roundtable series on Emerging Human Rights Standards on Obstetric Violence
May 28, 2026The EU-funded IPOV – Respectful Care project will present an international workshop at the 34th ICM Triennial Congress to promote respectful midwifery models and help eradicate obstetric violence
The workshop, based on role-play and experiential learning, will take place on Wednesday, 17 June, from 14:00 to 15:30.
The EU-funded IPOV – Respectful Care project will present the workshop “Eradicating obstetric violence by promoting respectful midwifery models: A 90-minute role-play workshop emerging from the EU-funded IPOV project” at the 34th ICM Triennial Congress. The session will take place on Wednesday, 17 June, from 14:00 to 15:30, in room 1.07.
In June 2026, Portugal will host the Triennial Congress of the International Confederation of Midwives, known as ICM. This is the largest global gathering of midwives, held every three years in different countries. It brings together professionals from around the world to share knowledge, discuss urgent challenges, and help shape the future of midwifery and sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health.
The 2026 edition will be co-organized in Portugal with APEO, the Portuguese Association of Midwives. For the IPOV project, this represents a meaningful opportunity to bring the issue of obstetric violence into a global professional space.
Therefore, we gathered a group within IPOV and submitted a proposal for a 90-minute practical workshop titled “Eradicating Obstetric Violence by Promoting Respectful Midwifery Models of Care: A Practical Role-Play Workshop.”
The session is led by an international team linked to universities, training centres and organisations from Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Uruguay. Under the coordination of Ema Schuler, from the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos, Argentina, the workshop will include the participation of Ana María Polo Gutiérrez, from the Observatorio de Violencia Obstétrica (OVO), Spain; Carina Ester Leiva, from the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos, Argentina; Isabel Maria Fonseca Ferreira, from UTERUS – Saúde Integrativa da Mulher, Portugal; Anna Maria Rossetti, from SEAO Scuola Elementale di Arte Ostetrica, Italy; and María Carolina Farías Rodríguez, from the Universidad de la República Oriental del Uruguay, Instituto de Psicología de la Salud, Facultad de Psicología, Uruguay.
The workshop aims to help participants identify behaviours that constitute obstetric violence, practise respectful communication and informed consent, and reflect critically on professional practice from a rights-based and empathetic perspective.
It is designed to be practical and participatory throughout, using recorded scenarios, role-play, small-group work and collective reflection. Participants will be invited not only to recognize harmful practices, but also to rehearse respectful, evidence-informed and human rights-based alternatives.
This matters because obstetric violence is not only an individual issue. It is also a cultural, institutional and professional challenge. Bringing this conversation into the ICM Congress means placing respectful maternity care at the heart of the global midwifery dialogue.
All materials developed for the workshop, including guides, scripts and videos, will be made freely available through the IPOV platform so that professionals around the world can use, adapt and replicate them.
IPOV’s participation at ICM is more than a conference activity. It is a way of transforming knowledge into action, and action into better care, because every woman deserves to be cared for with respect, dignity, evidence, empathy and human rights at the centre.
The proposal, registered under abstract number ICM26-0942 within the topic Midwifery Practice and Models of Care, presents a practical methodology to identify, question and transform behaviours that may constitute obstetric violence. The workshop is based on a central premise: eradicating obstetric violence requires training tools capable of promoting critical reflection, empathy, informed consent and real changes in clinical practice.
Over 90 minutes, participants will work with real clinical scenarios through role-play and dramatization techniques.
The workshop aims to enable participants to identify behaviours that constitute obstetric violence, demonstrate communication and consent techniques aligned with respectful care, and reflect critically on their own professional practice from an approach based on dignity, autonomy and rights.
The proposal forms part of the EU-funded IPOV – Respectful Care project, which focuses on preventing obstetric violence and promoting respectful maternity care. All workshop materials will be freely available through the International Platform on Obstetric Violence – Respectful Care, at respectfulcare.eu, with the aim of supporting their reuse in educational, clinical and community contexts.
The workshop reinforces essential principles of respectful midwifery, including autonomy, dignity, humanisation of care and salutogenesis. It also offers a replicable professional development tool for midwives, obstetric professionals, educators, students and healthcare teams interested in transforming care practices from an ethical, relational and rights-based perspective.
About IPOV – Respectful Care
IPOV – Respectful Care is a European Union-funded project working to make obstetric violence visible, study and prevent it, and promote respectful, safe and women- and birthing-person-centred models of maternity care. Through research, training, international exchange and open-access resources, the project contributes to the global debate on human rights, sexual and reproductive health, and the transformation of care models.