This 20th annual World Report summarises human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, based on investigative work in 2009 by Human Rights Watch (HRW) staff in partnership with human rights activists in the country in question. HRW notes that attacking human rights defenders, organisations, and institutions aims to silence the messenger, to deflect pressure and to lessen the cost of committing human rights violations. In the report, HRW calls on government supporters of human rights to defend the defenders by identifying and countering these attacks. The report also points out that defense of human rights, including health rights, depends on the vitality of the human rights movement.
Values, Policies and Rights
Call for governments to curb human rights abuses of migrants
December 18: 17 December 2009
Despite the increased efforts of the international community, including civil society, in promoting sound, equitable, humane and lawful conditions of migration, migrants continue being exposed to commoditisation and human rights violations. Building on recommendations by the Committee on Migrant Workers, December 18 strongly recommends that all states implement gender-sensitive legislation that extends the protections of international labour standards to migrant workers. It also calls on Governments to curb abuses of recruitment agencies, enhance legal channels for migration and open up judicial mechanisms to victims of abuse, regardless of their immigration status. The situation of migrant children also remains a particular concern, especially those who are unaccompanied and at risk of being smuggled or trafficked. All migrants are protected by human rights and labour standards, including the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, regardless of immigration status. Migrant children—whether accompanied or not and whatever their migratory status—are equally entitled to all the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. December 18 urges all states to ratify and implement the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2010.
Discrimination against African gays fuels the HIV epidemic
IRIN News: 19 January 2010
More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalising homosexual acts and, despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response. '[They] are going underground; they are hiding themselves and continuing to fuel the epidemic,' said UNAIDS executive director, Michél Sidibé. 'We need to make sure these vulnerable groups have the same rights everyone enjoys: access to information, care and prevention for them and their families.' Human rights violations against gays include a number of countries in east, southern and central Africa, such as Malawi, Uganda – which recently tabled the Anti-homosexuality Bill – and Tanzania, where more than 40 gay and lesbian activists in Tanzania were arrested in 2009. And in South Africa, in April 2008, Eudy Simelane, the openly gay star of South Africa's Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found murdered in a park on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed to death. Since then there has been a spate of similar attacks on lesbians in the country, but few ever reach the courts and only one prosecution has been successful.
HIV prevalence, risks for HIV infection, and human rights among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Malawi, Namibia and Botswana
Baral S, Trapence G, Motimedi F, Umar E and Iipinge S: PLoS ONE 4(3), 26 March 2009
In the generalised epidemics of HIV in southern Sub-Saharan Africa, men who have sex with men have been largely excluded from HIV surveillance and research. Epidemiologic data for MSM in southern Africa are among the sparsest globally, and HIV risk among these men has yet to be characterised in the majority of countries. A cross-sectional anonymous probe of 537 men recruited with non-probability sampling among men who reported ever having had sex with another man in Malawi, Namibia, and Botswana using a structured survey instrument and HIV screening with the OraQuick© rapid test kit. The HIV prevalence among those between the ages of 18 and 23 was 8.3%; 20% among those 24–29; and 35.7% among those older than 30 for an overall prevalence of 17.4%. In multivariate logistic regressions, being older than 25 and not always wearing condoms during sex were significantly associated with being HIV-positive. Human rights abuses were prevalent, with 42.1% reporting at least one abuse. Concurrency of sexual partnerships with partners of both genders may play important roles in HIV spread in these populations. Further epidemiologic and evaluative research is needed.
Indigenous rights ignored in global intellectual property rights policy, says new UN report
Cronin D: Intellectual Property Watch, 14 January 2010
The cultures of indigenous peoples have frequently been ignored when global standards on intellectual property have been set, says a new United Nations report, The State of the World's Indigenous People. It notes that global intellectual property (IP) standards are mainly based on Western legal and economic principles that emphasise private ownership of knowledge and resources. Such principles, it says, 'stand in stark contrast to indigenous worldviews, whereby knowledge is created and owned collectively and the responsibility for the use and transfer of the knowledge is guided by traditional laws and customs.' As a result, IP rules leave 'most indigenous traditional knowledge and folklore vulnerable to appropriation, privatisation, monopolisation and even biopiracy by outsiders,' the report says. Some indigenous peoples believe, the report says, that the World Intellectual Property Organization is 'not an appropriate forum to set standards because it is limited by its mandate to promoting intellectual property rights as the only viable path to protecting traditional knowledge'.
International legislative and regulatory frameworks
World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008
Over the past two decades, legislative and regulatory frameworks have been developed that address links between the environment and health. However, the extent to which these instruments have been streamlined within existing national legislation has not been formally documented and, according to this paper, these instruments are not currently deployed or adequately equipped, notably in Africa. It reveals weaknesses in the international and national regulatory mechanisms and their implementation, and brings to light institutional and operational deficiencies and a dramatic lack of capacity to manage hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound manner. It points to the need for an integrated institutional framework addressing human health and the environment. The Revised International Health Regulations (2005), now being implemented in all African countries, should provide a more cohesive approach to health and environment risk management. Despite the many efforts undertaken by African countries, the level of awareness and understanding of these environmental agreements among country-level policy makers remains limited.
Kenya launches special tribunal for HIV-related issues
Plus News: 21 January 2010
The Kenyan government has created the first ever tribunal to handle legal issues relating to HIV, including discrimination against people living with HIV and protecting the confidentiality of medical records. The new tribunal, under the office of the Attorney General, has the status of a subordinate court, with the right to summon witnesses and take evidence. It will handle issues relating to the transmission of HIV, confidentiality, testing, access to healthcare services, discriminatory acts and policies, and HIV-related research. Networks of people living with HIV have welcomed the formation of the new court. 'Setting up the tribunal is the clearest indication by the government that it is ready to entrench the rights of people living with HIV,' said Nelson Otuoma, chairperson of the Network Empowerment of People Living with AIDS. 'It is, however, important to let people know that the tribunal exists and further educate them on the roles and mandates of it.' Those living with HIV hope the tribunal will be an effective tool in ending discrimination, and groups like Otuoma's are already compiling lists of grievances to present to it.
Leaked confidential documents from WHO Working Group raise concern about transparency
Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 9 December 2009
Confidential documents related to the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Working Group on Innovative Financing for Research and Development have been leaked to the public, apparently revealing improper participation by the pharmaceutical industry in preparing WHO policy. The documents appear to have come from the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), and include draft reports on innovative financing mechanisms from the working group as well as an analysis by the IFPMA on the reports’ contents. 'IFPMA was not supposed to have working drafts of the expert working group in their possession and they were not given these documents,' said Precious Matsoso, director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) at WHO, under whose auspices the expert working group falls. 'It was understood by the working group that its report is intended for the director general and WHO members [only],' she added. Public health advocates reacted strongly to the leaked documents, raising issues of public accountability and transparency in policymaking.
Letter to Kenyan Minister of Public Health and Sanitation concerning home-based HIV testing and counselling
Human Rights Watch: 14 December 2009
In this letter to Kenya's minister for public health, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Kenyan government to ensure that human rights are protected during the country's national door-to-door voluntary HIV testing and counselling drive. 'We... urge the inclusion of a strong human rights component into this ambitious testing programme. In particular, we are calling for clear attention to principles of counselling, consent and confidentiality,' it said. HRW noted that large-scale home-based testing would likely result in better access to testing and treatment and give a chance to those who could not afford the transport costs to health facilities or lacked information or the willingness to seek a test. But testing also reached into the family, where many abuses occurred, posing challenges for human rights protection, it added. 'Our research on access to testing and treatment in Kenya has shown that HIV-positive mothers and HIV-positive children frequently suffer stigma and abuse when their status becomes known,' the letter said. 'HIV-positive mothers – among them girls under the age of 18 – sometimes suffer violence, mistreatment, disinheritance and discrimination from their husbands, families-in-law or their own families.'
Policy frameworks for addressing health and environmental challenges
World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008
This paper discusses a number of important policy frameworks for addressing health and environmental challenges, such as the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (also known as the Earth Summit), the Millennium Development Goals (Goals 4, 5 and 6), the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)’s Human Resources Development Initiative, which urges the integration of health and environment policies. In many African countries, national health-sector policies have been developed separate from those on environment. Planning and service delivery also takes place without deliberate integration. For more effective responses to the health and environment challenges facing the continent, this paper urges governments in Africa to mainstream health and environment into national development agendas, and develop the human capacity for assessment, regular monitoring and evaluation of the process.