‘Women’s health is initimately linked to issues of gender equity and violence’

EHM News Bureau - Mumbai

In many parts of the world, being a woman is a health risk. Gender inequities undermine women and children’s health, limit their access to health services and constrain women’s decision-making power. Women’s health is intimately linked to issues of gender equity and violence, said Dr Vibhuti Patel, head department of economics, SNDT university, Mumbai. She was speaking at “Engendering Health and Human Rights”, the annual two-day conference organised at the International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisation (IFHHR0) in Mumbai. IFHHRO, a federation of organisations working on health and human rights issues, brought together health professionals from across the world to debate and monitor issues on the interface of health and human rights and to influence both health professionals and international and national agencies for realisation of the right to health and healthcare, for this conference.

Adrian van Es, convener, IFHRHRO, said, “Global debate and governance have created a framework for establishing health as a human right, but the changing global political economy poses a major challenge for its realisation, universally.” Said Ravi Duggal, co-ordinator, CEHAT, “Human rights to health is not something that with specific tenets indicated in laws become realised. It requires appropriate measures having direct and practical beneficial effect for all.”

On family planning in India, Dr Abhijit Das, director, Centre for Health and Social Justice, said, “The concept of reproductive rights has gained currency since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). In the ICPD programme of Action, reroductve rights have been mentioned as embracing “certain human rights that are already recognised in national laws, international human right documents and other relevant UN consensus documents.” On women’s health concerns in conflict situations, Surinder Jaiswal from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, said, “Violent conflicts have a profound effect on women. Even though women are more likely than men to be effected they have no say in the conflict. Speaking on “public health implication of HIV/Aids related stigma, discrimination and human rights violence”, Dr Thomas Joe and Dr Mridual Bandyopadhay, said, “In popular as well as intellectual discourse on HIV/Aids, the term stigma, discrimination and human rights violence, are often used synonymously or interchangeably without describing the differences between these concepts. Such conceptual ambiguity comes from bias in approaches, lack of data and evidenced-based discourse, as well the political context.”

On “righting health sexually”examining the health and human rights approach to sexuality, human rights lawyer Oishik Sircar, said, “The growing diversity of rights-based advocacy in public health and health policy has inevitably engaged questions of sexuality. The UN human rights bodies are increasingly taking on new norms and laws relating to sexual diversity, health and harm; struggles for law reform engage with sexuality and rights claims in the context of sexual violence, HIV/Aids and emerging demands for sexual non discrimination.”

Speaking on the young people rights violation, an engine to HIV/AIDS prevalence rates among young people, Ocen Sam Fortunate, said, “According to Uganda Beaurak of Statistics 2002 report, young people account for 78 per cent of the country’s population, yet they are the most vulnerable to HIV infections. Young people are denied their rights to sexual reproductive health, rights to non discrimination and rights to marriage, when they are HIV positive, rights to privacy, right to information and knowledge.”