Health and human rights
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Health and human rights · Jan 2011
International law, national policymaking, and the health of trafficked people in the UK.
Human trafficking has been recognized both by the international community and many individual states around the world as a serious violation of human rights. Trafficking is associated with extreme violence and a range of physical, mental, and sexual health consequences. Despite the extreme nature of the harm caused by human trafficking, harm is not a concept that is integrated in the definition of trafficking or in policies to address the health of trafficked people. This paper examines the United Kingdom's response to human trafficking as a case study to explore national policy responses to the health needs of trafficked people and assess the willingness of UK authorities to implement international and regional law in securing trafficked people's health rights. ⋯ International and regional instruments that provide specific or mandated instruction about states' health care obligations can be effective in furthering the health rights of vulnerable migrant groups. The UK government has demonstrated limited appetite for exceeding its minimum obligations to provide for the health of trafficked people, however, and key principles for promoting the health rights of trafficked people are yet to be fulfilled.
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Health and human rights · Jan 2011
Identification of human trafficking victims in health care settings.
An estimated 18,000 individuals are trafficked into the United States each year from all over the world, and are forced into hard labor or commercial sex work. Despite their invisibility, some victims are known to have received medical care while under traffickers' control. Our project aimed to characterize trafficking victims' encounters in US health care settings. ⋯ This exploration of survivors' experiences in health care settings supports anecdotal reports that US health care providers may unwittingly encounter human trafficking victims. Increasing awareness of human trafficking, and modifying practice to facilitate disclosure, could improve victim identification.
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Health and human rights · Jun 2010
ReviewInternational obligations through collective rights: Moving from foreign health assistance to global health governance.
This article analyzes the growing chasm between international power and state responsibility in health rights, proposing an international legal framework for collective rights - rights that can reform international institutions and empower developing states to realize the determinants of health structured by global forces. With longstanding recognition that many developing state governments cannot realize the health of their peoples without international cooperation, scholars have increasingly sought to codify international obligations under the purview of an evolving human right to health, applying this rights-based approach as a foundational framework for reducing global health inequalities through foreign assistance. ⋯ For rights scholars to advance disease protection and health promotion through national primary health care systems - creating the international legal obligations necessary to spur development supportive of the public's health - the authors conclude that scholars must look beyond the individual right to health to create collective international legal obligations commensurate with a public health-centered approach to primary health care. Through the development and implementation of these collective health rights, states can address interconnected determinants of health within and across countries, obligating the international community to scale-up primary health care systems in the developing world and thereby reduce public health inequities through global health governance.
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Health and human rights · Jan 2010
Taking up Daniels' challenge: The case for global health justice.
In "Just Health", Norman Daniels makes a strong argument for obligations of mutual assistance to fulfill the right to health at the national level and challenges readers to develop arguments supporting obligations of mutual assistance at the global level. In this paper, we argue that there is global responsibility for global health and that there are obligations of justice (beyond charity) to help fulfill (not merely respect or even protect) the right to health in other countries; these we call obligations of global health justice. ⋯ The global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic has led to the emergence of a new international health assistance paradigm, and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is, we suggest, an embryonic form of this new paradigm. We conclude that agreements on several common parameters delineating global and national responsibility for global health can advance the movement towards a global institution for the distribution of health-related goods.
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Health and human rights · Jan 2010
International assistance and cooperation for access to essential medicines.
Access to essential medicines is a critical problem that plagues many developing countries. With a daunting number of domestic constraints - technologically, economically, and otherwise - developing countries are faced with a steep uphill battle to meet the human rights obligation of providing essential medicines immediately. To meet these challenges, the international human rights obligations of international assistance and cooperation can play a key role to help developing countries fulfill the need for access to essential medicines. This article seeks to highlight and expand upon the current understanding of international assistance and cooperation for access to essential medicines through a review of obligations identified in international human rights law and a synthesis of official guidance provided on the matter.