This paper provides arguments for discussions about the role of property rights for food security and child nutrition in rural Africa. The results are drawn from a case study in the Kafue Flats of Zambia. They show that unclear jurisdictional boundaries and weak authorities facilitated re-negotiations of property rights related to natural resources in the context of the Southern African food crisis of 2002–2003. Access to natural resources was skewed towards the more powerful. On average, food intake was temporarily 50% lower than the annual mean, compared to a less than 10% decrease in the lean season of 2003–2004. Large inequalities existed between different clusters of villages, according to the history of immigration and ethnicity. Yet variability was greatest within villages. Households which reported increasing difficulties with access to natural resources had less diversified income-generating activities, lower food intake and more children showing impaired growth. Discussions addressing the growing disparities in rural areas should focus on a realistic implementation and enforcement of property rights in the context of local power-relations and the harmonisation of different tenure systems related to natural resources.
Values, Policies and Rights
This policy brief critically analyses the option of a new pandemic treaty or other international legal instrument to enhance the pandemic preparedness and response. Part I provides an account of the origin of the idea of the pandemic treaty. Part II examines whether there is any legal vacuum which prevents the needed pandemic preparedness and response. Part III deals with the fragmentation of international health response and raises the concern that the new treaty will exacerbate fragmentation instead of consolidating the response. Part IV explains what to expect from the new treaty and the major process-related issues involved in the new pandemic treaty negotiations. The authors argue that instead of developing a new international instrument it is better to strengthen or amend the existing IHR.
Proposed food labelling regulations which aim to help consumers make healthier choices, are set to revolutionise the eating habits of South Africans. The new draft Regulations Relating to the Labelling and Advertising of Foodstuffs, have been published in the Government Gazette by the Department of Health in terms of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act. They focus on a number of strategies to improve public health, through promoting healthy food choices and improved nutrition by having products which are sold nationally, being labelled with more specifics.
In this declaration by health civil society organisations from around the world, Peoples Health Movement insist that real power be trabsferred to communities to deal with the social determinants of health. A call is made for United Nations Member States and the World Health Organisation to take action around ten key areas affecting the social determinants of health. 1. Implement equity-based social protection systems and maintain and develop effective publicly provided and publicly financed health systems that address the social, economic, environmental and behavioural determinants of health with a particular focus on reducing health inequities. 2. Use progressive taxation, wealth taxes and the elimination of tax evasion to finance action on the social determinants of health. 3. Recognise explicitly the clout of finance capital, its dominance of the global economy, and the origins and consequences of its periodic collapses. 4. Implement appropriate international tax mechanisms to control global speculation and eliminate tax havens. 5. Use health impact assessments to document the ways in which unregulated and unaccountable transnational corporations and financial institutions constitute barriers to Health for All. 6. Recognise explicitly the ways in which the current structures of global trade regulation shape health inequalities and deny the right to health. 7. Reconceptualise aid for health from high-income countries as an international obligation and reparation legitimately owed to developing countries under basic human rights principles. 8. Enhance democratic and transparent decision-making and accountability at all levels of governance. 9. Develop and adopt a code of conduct in relation to the management of institutional conflicts of interest in global health decision making. 10. Establish, promote and resource participatory- and action-oriented monitoring systems that provide disaggregated data on a range of social stratifiers as they relate to health outcomes.
The AIDS 2010 conference theme emphasises the central importance of protecting and promoting human rights as a prerequisite to a successful response to HIV. The right to dignity and self-determination for key affected populations, to equal access to health care and life-saving prevention and treatment programmes, and the right to evidence-based interventions based on evidence rather than ideology are all incorporated in this urgent demand for action. Rights Here, Rights Now, a campaign launched by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, emphasises that concrete human rights measures need to be in place to protect those most vulnerable to and affected by HIV, especially women and girls, people who use drugs, migrants, prisoners, sex workers, men who have sex with men and transgender persons.
In response to criticism of ethical review of a South African clinical trial, this study contrasts aspects of the United States (US) Common Rule with South African research ethics requirements. In the US the Common Rule does not apply to all health research and allows many exemptions from ethics review and waivers of informed consent. The study found that, at a structural level, research ethics review in South Africa is in many cases equivalent to the US institutional review board (IRB) and Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) oversight system, is wider reaching, and has no exclusions.
Article 14(2)(c) of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women enjoins States Parties to take appropriate measures "to protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus." This paper considers the implications of Article 14 for access to safe, legal abortion. It is submitted that Article 14 has the potential to impact positively on regional abortion law, policy and practice in three main areas. First, it takes forward the global consensus on combating abortion as a major public health danger. Second, it provides African countries with not just an incentive, but also an imperative for reforming abortion laws in a transparent manner. Third, if implemented in the context of a treaty that centers on the equality and non-discrimination of women,Article 14 has the potential to contribute towards transforming access to abortion from a crime and punishment model to a reproductive health model.
New sections of the Children’s Act and the Children’s Amendment Act in South Africa came into effect on 1 April 2010. The Children’s Act dealing with the capacity of children to consent to HIV testing and to access contraceptives have been in effect since 1 July 2007 and the new sections now allow children of 12 years of age to consent to medical treatment, and to surgical operations with the assistance of their parent or guardian. The provisions allowing consent to termination of pregnancy by girls of any age in the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act are not affected by this Act.
Rates of gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa (SA) are among the highest in the world. In societies where social ideals of masculinity encourage male dominance and control over women, gender power imbalances contribute to male perpetration and women’s vulnerability. The drivers that cause men to perpetrate GBV and those that lead to HIV overlap and interact in multiple and complex ways. Multiple risk and protective factors for GBV perpetration by males operate interdependently at a number of levels; at the individual level, these include chronic anxiety and depression, which have been shown to lead to risky sexual behaviours. This study examined psychosocial risk factors (symptoms of anxiety and depression) as well as protective factors (social support and self-esteem) as self-reported by a cohort of males in rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, SA; to determine whether there are differences in anxiety, depression, social support and self-esteem between perpetrators and non-perpetrators. A cross-sectional study using quasi-probability cluster sampling was done in 13 wards in Harry Gwala District, KZN. Participants were then randomly chosen from each ward proportionate to size. The participants were relatively young (median age 22 years); over half were schoolgoers, and 91.3% had never married. Over 43% of the sample reported clinical levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory. Rates of GBV perpetration were 60.9%, 23.6% and 10.0% for psychological abuse, non-sexual physical violence and sexual violence, respectively. GBV perpetration was associated with higher depression, higher anxiety, lower self-esteem and lower social support. The authors propose that interventions to address GBV need to take modifiable individual-level factors into account.
The South African Human Rights Commission's public inquiry into health care services concluded the open hearings phase on 1 June 2007. The Commission put together a programme that created space for all who needed to be heard, on the right of everyone to access health care services as provided for in the Bill of Rights. Several organisations made submissions