WUNRN
A Massive Human Rights Catastrophe: Maternal Mortality
Statement to United Nations Human Rights Council 4
By Hélène Sackstein
Consultant - Women's & Children's Rights
NGO Representative at the United Nations &
World Health Organization
Link - UN Special Raporteur Health - Mr. Paul Hunt
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/health/right/index.htm
In his excellent report on the right to the highest attainable standard
of health, Mr. Hunt challenges human rights civil society organizations and
health professionals alike to pay more attention to economic, social and
cultural rights in general and the right to health in particular. In short, the
right to health needs a boost.
One shocking example of this general lack of interest underscored in the
report is maternal mortality. The report notes that each year there are 500.000
maternal deaths, or one every minute; 95% of these are in Africa and Asia and
most could be avoided. The burden of this scourge falls disproportionately on
women in low income countries and on women living in poverty in affluent
countries.
There is no single cause of death and disability for men between the
ages of 15 and 44 that is close to this magnitude and maternal mortality
reveals sharp discrepancies between men and women in their enjoyment of sexual
and reproductive health rights.
Maternal mortality exposes profound and multiple inequalities - global
ethnic and gender.
It’s not just a health issue, argues the report, it is a human rights
issue which violates women’s rights to life, health, non-discrimination.
Since 1980, the WG on Enforced Disappearances has taken up about 50.000
while cases there have been well over 10 million maternal deaths during the
same period.
The report encourages human rights NGOs to campaign against maternal
mortality and other egregious health and human rights issues just as vigorously
as they taken up the death penalty, torture, or disappearances. This massive human rights catastrophe, has not
attracted the attention it deserves. NGOs have now duly taken note of the
challenge.
Fighting maternal mortality could become a powerful vehicle for
strengthening health systems accessible to all, thus providing a concrete entry
point for the implementation of the full
scope of the right to health and all related rights on which it is dependant such as the rights to drinking water, to
food, to housing, to privacy, to education, to information, to healthy
occupational and environmental
conditions, etc.
It is also hoped that a concerted effort to fight maternal mortality
will serve as an equally powerful vehicle and entry point to better integrate
the human rights of women in the implementation of the full range of economic
social and cultural rights for all special groups on the Council’s agenda such
as minorities, indigenous peoples, children, migrants, etc. and as indicator of
this integration in the work of the Council.
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