This pack assesses how it might be possible to move towards a world that recognises and values the importance of different forms of care, but without reinforcing care work as something that only women can or should do. Drawing on diverse examples of initiatives taking place in countries across the world, it considers what strategies offer the best prospects for change. It recommends that donors should fund capacity building of grassroots care-givers, women’s organisations and networks, and organisations and networks of people living with HIV and AIDS, to enable care givers to advocate for their rights and represent themselves in local, national and international decision-making forums. Governments should ensure that gender-sensitive care provision is an integral and budgeted aspect of HIV and AIDS policies and programmes.
Values, Policies and Rights
This report discusses the University of Pennsylvania African Human Genetic Diversity Project, and the filing of patent claims in October 2007 over genetic material collected from communities in Africa. It questions the staking of legal claims over the natural genetic resources of Africans. Such patents not only allow exclusive rights to such resources, but also enable profit from future medical applications. the report notes that the patent is possible, because US patent law extends patent protection to life forms. This new trend has enabled research institutions and corporations to secure patents for almost 5% of the entire human genome. The report seeks to contribute to stopping the exploitation of African genetic resources.
The mountain kingdom of Lesotho faces a number of unique hurdles with regard to HIV and AIDS. The country is landlocked within South Africa, the epicentre of the pandemic and, because of limited job opportunities and high unemployment rates within Lesotho, many of its citizens work as migrant labourers in South Africa. In addition, Lesotho has a particularly weak public health infrastructure due to rural isolation, lack of skilled health workers and high poverty rates. Migrant labourers, particularly all those working in South African mines, are a huge concern because they pose a high risk of having multiple concurrent partnerships and of taking HIV infections across the border. The health departments of Lesotho and South Africa should come up with cross-border health policies to deal with this public health problem.
Government is responsible for the failures in South Africa's public healthcare system, and needs to address them so that every citizen's right to access healthcare services is realised, the South African Human Rights Commission has said. The Commission released its report on an inquiry into the country's public healthcare services, based on visits to about 100 facilities across the country and submissions from the public during May 2007. It identified poverty as a major barrier to accessing healthcare services in South Africa. As of 2007, 88% of South Africans are dependant on public healthcare services. The poor make up the majority of this figure, but the report found that their access to these services is severely constrained by transport costs and unacceptably long waiting times at clinics or hospitals. 'These constraints amount to a denial of the right to access healthcare,' said the Committee's deputy chairperson.
This guide is intended to aid civil society actors in becoming more involved in the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, with a specific focus on the valuable role that health workers can play. The appointment of the first Special Rapporteur on the right to health in 2002 and the resulting body of work on the right to health has proven to be a valuable catalyst for further action within the health and human rights movement. At the same time there remains much unawareness and misconception concerning the work of the Special Rapporteur and the ways in which civil society actors can be involved. The guide provides general information on the Special Rapporteur, and presents possibilities for contribution and follow-up to the three main areas of his work. It offers concrete assistance on how the annual reports, country missions, and the individual complaints mechanism of the Special Rapporteur can be used by civil society.
In a strongly worded letter to the president of Zambia, the country's Catholic bishops called on the government not to ratify an African Union protocol with articles that would threaten the sacredness of life and the sanctity of marriage. They demand amendments to Article 7 on separation, divorce and the annulment of marriage and to Article 14 on the protection of reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of assault, rape and incest. The bishops said the Catholic Church holds in high esteem the sanctity of marriage and the sacredness of human life from birth to death. 'It is in this light we find it immoral, unjust and out of context to sign this protocol without making changes to the two articles to agree with the divine and natural law,' they said. The government has not yet reacted to the bishops' appeal.
In this paper, grounded theory procedures were use to analyse literature pertaining to dignity and to conduct and analyse 64 semi-structured interviews with persons marginalised by their health or social status, individuals who provide health or social services to these populations, and people working in the field of health and human rights. The results showed that the taxonomy presented identifies two main forms of dignity – human dignity and social dignity – and describes several elements of these forms, including the social processes that violate or promote them, the conditions under which such violations and promotions occur, the objects of violation and promotion and the consequences of dignity violation. Together, these forms and elements point to a human rights-based theory of dignity that can be applied to the health sector.
Healthcare providers' conscientious objection to involvement in certain procedures is grounded in the right to freedom of religion, conscience and thought. However, such conscientious objection can have serious implications for the human rights of healthcare users, including their sexual and reproductive health rights. This briefing paper examines the implications of conscientious objection, by healthcare providers, for the protection of sexual and reproductive health rights, and concludes with a set of recommendations for States' policies and laws.
This briefing considers the responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies for enhancing access to medicines in the context of sexual and reproductive health. To provide some substance with which to shape the responsibilities of the pharmaceutical industry, the briefing first examines the issue of access to medicine in the context of both HIV/AIDS and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Various statistics are provided to convey the severity of the situation, and the intersection with the fundamental rights to sexual and reproductive health. Having provided this context, the authors outline the responsibilities of States to ensure that medicines are available, accessible, culturally acceptable, and of good quality. However, they stress that the pharmaceutical sector has an indispensable role to play in relation to the right to health and access to medicines; this is a shared responsibility.
The IFHHRO Africa Regional Training on Monitoring the Right to Health took place in Kampala, Uganda, in December last year. It was organised by AGHA and IFHHRO's Africa Regional Focal Point. The objectives of the training were to bring health professionals and their organisations together to share experiences on monitoring the right to health, to develop an understanding of health related human rights, to make health professionals aware that they have responsibilities regarding the realisation of the right to health, particularly through monitoring, to show the practical meaning and significance of monitoring the right to health in the day-to-day work of health professionals and their organisations, and to develop practical action plans for the future.