BIOETYKA / WPROWADZENIE

BIOETYKA / WPROWADZENIE - Przeglądy aktów prawnych

Women's and children's health: evidence of impact of human rights - 2013

What is a human rights-based approach to health? s. 14

This study uses the understanding of a human rights based approach adopted by WHO and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This approach aims to realize the right to the highest attainable standard of health (or ”right to health”) and other health-related rights. It underscores that the right to health includes timely and appropriate health care, as well as the underlying determinants of health, such as safe and potable water, health-related information, and gender equality. A human rights-based approach is based on seven key principles: availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of facilities and services, participation, equality and non-discrimination, and accountability. The approach is not only about achieving certain goals or outcomes; it is about achieving them through a participatory, inclusive, transparent and responsive proces.

Participation and human rights: impact on women’s and children’s health – what does the literature tell us? s.15

The monograph also reports on findings from a review of a specific subset of the academic literature on participation, human rights, and women’s and children’s health. This review sought to illustrate the impact of one principle of a human rights-based approach – participation – on women’s and children’s health, while retaining a focus on other human rights principles. The overarching review question was: “What evidence is there that the participation of women in the design, implementation, management and/or evaluation of their community health services/systems leads to greater access to, and use of, acceptable and quality reproductive, maternal and child health services, and/or evaluation of their community health services/systems leads to greater access to, and use of, acceptable and quality reproductive, maternal and child health services, and/or improved outcomes?” In addition to this overarching question, the review process identified more specific subsidiary questions.

The key findings of the review included the following.

• There was evidence of an association between women’s participation and improved health and health-related outcomes.

• The studies in the review highlighted the benefits of attention to additional HRBA principles alongside participation.

An enabling environment for a human rights-based approach to women’s and children’s health s. 15-16

One of the themes emerging from this report is that a human rights-based approach to women’s and children’s health is supported by an enabling environment with a number of features, including high-level political leadership and advocacy for a human rights-based approach, and a dynamic civil society. Steps that governments can take towards such a positive environment include ratifying key international human rights treaties, endorsing other global commitments, recognizing the right to health in the constitution, establishing non-judicial human rights oversight bodies, and ensuring policy coherence and effective coordination among multiple stakeholders. Although their mix and sequencing may vary from one country to another, these steps may be instructive for those countries committed to implementing a human rights-based approach to women’s and children’s health.