AFRO-NETS> The role of human rights in politicizing our ethics and praxis in health

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

The role of human rights in politicizing our ethics and praxis in health
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24 KEY STATEMENTS

1. The new Human Rights (HR) discourse in development has eight main 
areas of concern: population and gender; mortality and fertility; 
health; education; income and employment; habitat and infrastructure; 
the environment; human security; and social justice: All of these im-
pinge on people's health and well-being.

2. The Human Rights approach is about getting the poor influence and, 
more specifically, about the process that leads from the poor having 
voice to having influence. It is about creating pressure groups 
amongst those whose rights are being violated.

3. This HR discourse represents the resurrection-of or the return-to 
a greater focus and action on the basic causes of the conceptual 
framework of ill-health and malnutrition.

4. HR is about breaking the silence of powerlessness that keeps the 
needs and desires of the poor from becoming part of national politi-
cal agendas.

5. Commitment to change coming from ethical imperatives alone does 
not fuel great social movements anymore; these imperatives lead to 
soft solutions when faced with hard choices. We need to consolidate 
our moral vision into moral outrage and that into political power to 
achieve the health rights of people; this because we need hard ap-
proaches to address the very control processes in society.

6. So far, our prestige as health professionals has depended on lay-
ing claim to being rational and apolitical, on not getting involved 
in the politics of it all. But when existing health policies and 
standards are violating people 's basic rights, we have to openly op-
pose them. And for that, hard approaches are needed.

7. Actually, both ethically and politically motivated approaches to 
HR are necessary; alone, each is necessary, but not sufficient.

8. We need moral advocates to influence perceptions; mobilization 
agents and health promoters to influence action; and political advo-
cates to raise political consciousness and provide leadership.

9. Agreeing on the politics of HR -beyond ethics- is the real chal-
lenge.

10. The HR discourse constitutes a paradigm break. But, so far, this 
break has only been conceptual, not yet operational.

11. Operationalizing HR means becoming more political since HR is 
about combating surplus powerlessness of the have-nots: How to opera-
tionalize this in the health field is a challenge awaiting us.

12. Only a process of mobilization of beneficiaries around health is-
sues will do. Such a mobilization has to lead to empowerment and to 
concrete actions (self-help, lobbying, placing demands, public demon-
strations, exerting active resistance to social abuses).

13. Without genuine political mobilization, development in health is 
like a Christmas toy: batteries not included.

14. Economic justifications or excuses of governments do not relieve 
them from their duty to fulfil the rights particularly of women and 
children.

15. As opposed to people having basic needs, having basic rights 
makes it possible for rights holders to legitimately claim the same. 
The new Human Rights paradigm thus strengthens our hand to act.

16. The HR approach imposes clear obligations on duty bearers that 
must be met. Such obligations include respecting, protecting and ful-
filling all applicable to health.

17. States have the duty to improve health services and we have to 
hold them accountable to it.

18. The values we will now be advocating for are underpinned by In-
ternational Human Rights Law. And that gives us added strength.

19. The focus now has shifted to the politico-legal links between 
health and HR.

20. Most of us stand accused for our complacency towards violations 
of HR. We cannot escape taking part of the blame.

21. We now have to contribute to clarify universal minima for HR in 
the health field, to establish explicit HR goals and measurable ob-
jectives in health.

22. We may not exert political leadership on these issues yet, but we 
cannot run away from at least showing intellectual leadership.

23. We have to overcome the culture of silence and apathy about Human 
Rights issues, because rights have to be taken, they are not given.

24. The call is for us to move from a basic needs to a rights-based 
approach in which beneficiaries become active claim holders exerting 
all the needed pressures on pertinent individual and institutional 
duty bearers to act.

Claudio Schuftan
Hanoi, Vietnmam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn

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