[MUSIC] Hello, welcome to this lecture on Human Rights in a Global Health Perspective. Today, we would like to discuss A few points around this topic health and human rights, is health a Human Right? Is there a Right to Health? What are the links between Healths and Human Rights? And what are major issues we're present facing in the field of health and Human Rights? Now, is health a human right? The Constitution of the World Health Organization in 1946 definitely says yes, health is a human right. And you see the definition, enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being. Without any discrimination, very important, without any discrimination. What says the declaration of human rights two years later? It says that everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for health, it's quite different. The important breakthrough in the notion of health as being a human right, and in the notion of right to health, is to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966. It clearly takes over the definition of the World Health Organization. Health is a basic human right. But it also underlines the importance of the states, the nations, the countries, to implement. The right to health, to implement health in the country. So, for example in Article 12.2, it does say that the state have to take steps to reduce for example infant mortality. To improve, everyone's mental health. To develop health systems. To develop prevention, treatment, and control of basic common disease. Very important, this convent on the culture social and economic rights. Another very important instrument in the international documents is the comment 14 of the year 2000. It clarifies the important aspects of the right to health. It does stress that there are underlying determinates of health. Water, food, sanitation, gender equity. It does also stress that there are freedoms for the individual. For example the freedom to decline treatment. Maybe in the future the freedom to die in a dignified way. And then, there are also entitlements. Entitlements of the communities and individuals. To access to basic medicine, access to basic health services. So, very important instrument, the General Comment 14 of the year 2000 in the field of health as a human right, but also the right to health. It further provide some reflection about the obligations of state to respect, to protect and to fulfill the right to health for individuals and for the communities. Maybe we can sum up the important elements of the General comment 14. It does state to provide public health programs and healthcare facilities that are available, that are accessible. The door acceptable and the door of quality. Here we have the major instruments related to health as a human right, related to the right to health. But there are many other international instruments that have stressed and recognized their right to health. Certainly, an important one is the Convention on the Rights of Children, of 1989. But also, more recently for example the convention. Authorized person living with disabilities. Now, let's have a look close up on some links between healths and human rights. Human rights violation do affect health you can easily understand. For example that victim of torture might have her or his health compromised through torture. Violence against women, child abuse, slavery. Human rights violation can directly affect healths. That's one point. Another link is the protection of health that is possible through the implementation of human rights. The protection of health through the implementation of human rights. For example, you take the right to education. We know that the better women are educated in a community, the better health, the better the health of the community. We know that the right to food can contribute to the health of children, of women, of men. So, the protection of basic human rights, like the right to food, the right to water, the right to education, the right to information can contribute to the healths of the communities and of the population. And then finally, it's another link, possible link between health and human rights. We can have public healths, public, or healths policies that do contribute to human rights. Or to, or put in danger human rights. For example, we can have public policies. That produce discrimination between subgroups of the population. Or we can have public policies that are keen to avoid discrimination about different subgroups of the population. So the links between health and human rights are strong, are multifold, are complex but they do certainly exist. Now, let's have a quick look. On health and human rights, and the issues that we are facing in the present world. Of course, it's very, very quick. For example, violence against woman is a major health and human rights issue in a global health prospective. One woman out of three worldwide is victim of domestic violence. These women have the risk to develop depression that is twice as important as women that are not exposed to domestic violence. The same for risk having alcohol problems or even developing HIV AIDS. So, certainly violence against against woman is a major health and human right problem or the right. Some of the issues we talked about the right to food and to nutrition. A long way to go, a long way to go. At present about 15% of the world population lack adequate nutrition. Undernourished people are prone to develop many different disease. 15%of the world has population. It's something like 850 million people. The right to education, we do know that the better a community is educated the better health of the community. Now we have situation here, data from a study in 63 countries. We see that about 30% of children have no access to primary education. In this situation It's very difficult, and it's worse, in children that come from families with very low incomes. The situation is better in the same countries, for children that come from families with better incomes. Here, there is a problem of Basic equity between subgroups of population in the same community. And then, another major issue is these policies. These health policies that might effect basic human rights. And I take the example of the freedom of movement. There might be situations like Case A where isolation of persons, of communities is recommended out of public health reasons, protecting the larger population. This might be acceptable Ebola, fevers, SARS, untreated multi-resistant tuberculosis. Certainly, there are reasons to limit, to restrict, the freedom of movement of some groups of population of some patients. But then we might have Case B. Situation where ministries recommend implement restriction of movement in situation where its not acceptable. For example, restricting the movement of person that HIV positive. So you see, there are many issues. We only discussed the few ones. Very few ones. There are many issues, whether it's a close link between health, and human rights. And summing up, maybe we can say that health is a fundamental human right. We can also say that the freedom from discrimination is key to all human rights. It under paints all human rights. Another point, all human rights are interdependent and interrelated. And the right to have It's certainly very inclusive. Human rights concern very important point, the relation between states and individuals. States have obligations, individuals have entitlements. Thank you. [MUSIC]
