E/C.12/GC/22 reproductive health care. States must ensure that health-care providers are adequately trained on the provision of quality and respectful sexual and reproductive health services and ensure that such providers are equitably distributed throughout the State. 47. States must develop and enforce evidence-based standards and guidelines for the provision and delivery of sexual and reproductive health services, and such guidance must be routinely updated to incorporate medical advancements. At the same time, States are required to provide age-appropriate, evidence-based, scientifically accurate comprehensive education for all on sexual and reproductive health.37 48. States must also take affirmative measures to eradicate social barriers in terms of norms or beliefs that inhibit individuals of different ages and genders, women, girls and adolescents from autonomously exercising their right to sexual and reproductive health. Social misconceptions, prejudices and taboos about menstruation, pregnancy, delivery, masturbation, wet dreams, vasectomy and fertility should be modified so that these do not obstruct an individual’s enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health. C. Core obligations 49. States parties have a core obligation to ensure, at the very least, minimum essential levels of satisfaction of the right to sexual and reproductive health. In this regard, States parties should be guided by contemporary human rights instruments and jurisprudence,38 as well as the most current international guidelines and protocols established by United Nations agencies, in particular WHO and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).39 The core obligations include at least the following: (a) To repeal or eliminate laws, policies and practices that criminalize, obstruct or undermine access by individuals or a particular group to sexual and reproductive health facilities, services, goods and information; (b) To adopt and implement a national strategy and action plan, with adequate budget allocation, on sexual and reproductive health, which is devised, periodically reviewed and monitored through a participatory and transparent process, disaggregated by prohibited ground of discrimination; (c) To guarantee universal and equitable access to affordable, acceptable and quality sexual and reproductive health services, goods and facilities, in particular for women and disadvantaged and marginalized groups; (d) To enact and enforce the legal prohibition of harmful practices and gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation, child and forced marriage and domestic and sexual violence, including marital rape, while ensuring privacy, 37 See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 14; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women general recommendation No. 30 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations, para. 52 (c); and Committee on the Rights of the Child general comment No. 15, para. 60. 38 See, for example, www.icpdbeyond2014.org; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women communications No. 17/2008, and No. 22/2009, L.C. v. Peru, views adopted on 17 October 2011; and general comments and recommendations of Committee on the Rights of the Child and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. 39 See e.g. Inter-agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings (Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises, 2010), available from www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/emergencies/ field_manual_rh_humanitarian_settings.pdf; and publications by UNFPA on sexual and reproductive health, available from www.unfpa.org/sexual-reproductive-health. 12