Health and Human Rights News
Week ending 7 April 2025
World Health Day, 7 April
Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures: today starts a year focusing on maternal and newborn health. The World Health Organization is indeed hopeful this focus will urge governments to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths, and to prioritize women’s longer-term health and well-being. WHO estimates that there are nearly “300,000 maternal deaths annually, while over 2 million babies die in their first month of life and around 2 million more are stillborn. Based on current trends, a staggering 4 out of 5 countries are off track to meet targets for improving maternal survival by 2030.” However, with recent cuts in foreign assistance by both the United States and United Kingdom (see below), global improvements in reproductive health are a greater challenge than ever.
See also:
The US Administration Assault on Global Reproductive Health and Autonomy, Winona Xu, Viewpoint, February 2025
Five Lessons for Advancing Maternal Health Rights in an Age of Neoliberal Globalization and Conservative Backlash, Alicia Ely Yamin, June 2023, 25/1
UK reverses election promise and reduces aid budget
The UK Labour government is going back on its election pledge to increase aid to the globally agreed 0.7% of gross national income, and instead will spend 0.3%, a reduction of 4.5 billion pounds (about US $5.8 billion). Human Rights Watch described the cuts as morally bankrupt, hitting women and girls the hardest, as they were in 2021 with aid cuts, and warns, “The decision to downgrade the UK as an aid superpower will invariably have longer-term security implications.”
See also:
Enforceable Commitments to Global Health Needed to Fulfill Rights, Moses Mulumba et al, Viewpoint, March 2025
Chaos in US health sector as ‘mistakes’ made
US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has admitted up to 20% of the first round of 10,000 job cuts in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were made in error, and many of these staffers are now being asked to return. But Kennedy also claims these errors were planned. The Guardian quoted Kennedy, “Personnel that should not have been cut, were cut…We’re reinstating them. And that was always the plan. Part of the Doge, we talked about this from the beginning, is we’re going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstated, because we’ll make mistakes.” Kennedy announced the workforce would be reduced from 80,000 to 60,000 and HHS would have to cut spending on contracts by 35%, which public health experts across the country are warning will severely weaken public health. The dismissals began on 1 April and included top US public health officials at the CDC, FDA, NIH, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Trump administration also announced abrupt cancellation and revocation of roughly $11.4 billion in COVID-era funding for grants linked to addiction, mental health and other programs.
See also:
Trump’s Banned Words and Disastrous Health Policies, Joseph J. Amon, Viewpoint, 3 February 2025
Measles spreads in under vaccinated areas
The measles outbreak in Texas has now spread to at least four other states and WHO has recorded cases linked to the US outbreak in Mexico. A recent ProPublica article reported that “Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging,” in a move seemingly intended to move public health messaging away from vaccine education.
States urged to join UN experts to preserve international law
Tlaleng Mofokeng, the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, along with other UN Experts, is urging more States to join the Hague Group, which aims to avert the tangible risk of erosion of the international legal system, the rule of law and the protection of all human rights. The group is committed to implementing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) provisional measures in the case of South Africa v. Israel and complying with the International Criminal Court arrest warrants of November 2024. They have also pledged to abide by the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 2024 by preventing the transfer of arms, munitions and related goods to Israel.
Myanmar earthquake leaves millions without health services
A 7.7 magnitude earthquake followed by a 6.4 magnitude quake struck Myanmar on March 28, claiming the lives of more than 3,000 people and injuring more than 4,000 others. WHO has reported serious disruptions of electricity and water supplies, as well as to critical infrastructure including health facilities. Emergency response in Myanmar has relied heavily on international aid, and though the United States promised $2 million in aid, mass layoffs at USAID has left it on the ‘international sidelines’ of disaster response, with delays likely costing lives. According to former head of the USAID Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance, Jeremy Konydyk, “the US basically was not there for the rescue window, period. And it’s too late.”
US expulsion of asylum applicants goes to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
New evidence provided by Physicians for Human Rights found that individuals expelled from the United States without being allowed to present asylum claims had psychological and physical symptoms consistent with their reports of torture, mistreatment, and/or persecution in their countries of origin. The 112 people, who arrived in the United States from a wide range of countries, were not permitted to present their asylum claims before they were forcibly moved into detention in Panama. The medico-legal evaluations, conducted in line with Istanbul Convention guidelines, informed a submission provided to the IACHR on March 31st as part of an ongoing lawsuit, which aims to protect these individuals and guarantee them their human right to asylum.
See also:
Eliminating Asylum: The Effects of Trump Administration Policies, Katherine Cl McKenzie, Eleanor Emergy, Kathryn Hampton, and Sural Shah, August 2020
COVID-19, Asylum, and False Binaries of Detention, Katherine R. Peeler and Scott H. Podolsky, June 2020
Bringing rights to financing for development conference…
The 4th Financing for Development (FfD) conference will take place in June in Seville, Spain, bringing together governments, international institutions, the private sector and civil society to shape global economics, including aid, tax, debt, and climate finance. In preparation, the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) has analysed the first draft of the outcome document of the conference, and finds human rights appear inconsistently and selectively, “strongly linked, for example, to tech oversight, but absent in other critical sectors like debt, trade, or tax.” CESR urges the human community to get involved—”because this is where the rules of the global economy are being written.”
See also:
Ecuador Court Forces Tax Changes to Comply with the Right to Health, Berenice Cerra and Daniel Dorado, 11 September 2024
The Equity Effect of Universal Health Care, Anja Rudiger, Vol 25/2, 2023
…and building rights-based economies
Human rights groups, including the Center for Economic and Social Rights and Human Rights Watch, are collaborating to create a movement for human rights-based economies, and seek comments on their working paper. A rights-based approach to economies would obligate governments to use the maximum of their available resources – individually and through international cooperation and assistance – to realize human rights. This includes economic, social, and cultural rights, such as to health, education, social security, housing, food, and water, as well as the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
See also:
Special section on economic inequality and the right to health, Dec 2023, Vol 25/2.
Human Rights and the Political Economy of Universal Health Care: Designing Equitable Financing, Anja Rudiger, Dec 2016, Vol 18/2.
Health worker deaths in Gaza appal Türk …
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk addressed the UN Security Council on 3 April, saying he was appalled by the recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, in Gaza, which raised further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military. He stated, “There must be an independent, prompt and thorough investigation into the killings, and those responsible for any violation of international law must be held to account.”
See also:
The Other Humanitarians: Emergency First Responders and the Problem of Eradication-Level Harm, Adriana Petryna, Viewpoint, 11 March 2025
… Leadership for peace needed
Volker Türk also addressed Princeton students on 4 April, describing the denial of human rights globally from free speech to minority rights, including LGBTIQ+ and asylum seekers. He delivered a speech of hope, “Just as the challenges we face are interconnected, our solutions must also be linked. I believe that starts with putting humanity back at the heart of policy. Some Governments are failing to fulfil their most basic task: to support and protect their people. While markets have taken on almost sacred status, people are being left behind…. I urge you to…ensure that everyone has access to adequate housing, education, health as a matter of right.”
See also:
A Letter to Young and Future Leaders in Struggles for Health Rights and Social Justice, Alicia Ely Yamin, December 2019
Previous news bulletins