The meaning of human rights for women working in the Rwandan health sector
Monday, March 8 marked the celebration of International Women’s Day, a global tribute to the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In this guest post, Dr. Agnès Binagwaho, Permanent Secretary of Rwanda’s Ministry of Health, reflects on the human rights of women in Rwanda. Sixteen years ago, during the 1994 Rwandan [...]
Keeping Haiti on the radar
[Editor's Note: This OpenForum op-ed was written by Abigail Hook, a Harvard College undergraduate currently volunteering with the FXB Center] The wealth of global response to Haiti’s January earthquake suggests a tremendous sense of global responsibility for a country whose current death toll is over 200,000. Now that Haiti is on the world’s central radar, how [...]
Developing a health system: The case of Nyaya Health in rural Nepal
[Editor’s Note: This two-part entry features a narrative and photo essay by Dan Schwarz. The entire photo series and Dan's bio may be found below.] Founded on an unwillingness to accept the grave inequities and double standards that are tolerated every day within the world, Nyaya Health, a small NGO in rural Nepal, operates [...]
Nyaya Health photo essay
[Editor's Note: This photo essay by Dan Schwarz is accompanied by narrative, found in the post above.] Photo 1: Sanfe Bagar Primary Health Center Nyaya Health opened the first community free clinic in the district of Achham in 2008. During the 14 months of its operation, Nyaya’s all-Nepali staff of 20 full-time personnel saw over [...]
Student’s view: A lesson of malnutrition in Nicaragua
[Editor's note: This is a guest post written by Meredith Baker. Her bio may be found at the end of the article.] This past winter break, I had the opportunity as part of my undergraduate program to travel to Nicaragua and participate in community development work. While I have witnessed considerable poverty before, the [...]
La participación social en un contexto de violencia política: Implicaciones para la promoción y ejercicio del derecho a la salud en Guatemala
Walter Flores, Ana Lorena Ruano, y Denise Phé Funchal [Editor's note: A PDF version of this article is available here.] Resumen La participación social se ha entendido de muchas formas y existen tipologías en la literatura que la clasifican por los niveles de control por parte de la población en la toma de decisiones. Así, la [...]
Limitations on human rights in the context of drug-resistant tuberculosis: A reply to Boggio et al.
Joseph J. Amon, Françoise Girard, and Salmaan Keshavjee [Editor's note: A PDF version of this article is available here.] Abstract Recent attention to multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR- and XDR-TB) has increased discussion and debate over the extent to which limitations to human rights can be justified in the name of [...]
¿Deliberación democrática o mercadeo social? Los dilemas de la definición pública en salud en el contexto del seguimiento de la Sentencia T–760 de 2008
In July 2008, the Colombian Constitutional Court (the Court) issued a decision in which it called upon the Colombian government to adopt a series of measures to progressively realize the right to health. The decision called for a significant restructuring of the country’s health system, in part as a response to the tens of thousands of cases that had flooded the courts in recent years with complaints regarding the system.
Holding multilateral organizations accountable: The failure of WHO in regards to childhood malnutrition
This article first reviews the methods of monitoring growth and development among children under five years of age by the WHO. It then addresses the fact that the WHO delayed disseminating new Child Growth Standards. This delay has cost the lives of malnourished children around the world[...]
Rights to bottle-feeding in poor countries: What is really at stake? A response to Dr. Agnès Binagwaho
The article by Dr. Agnès Binagwaho in Health and Human Rights, Volume 10, Number 1, cannot go without a rebuttal, as the argument appears to rest on several fallacies. Recounting the skepticism that existed ten years ago about anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in resource-poor settings and the success of activists in forcing the scale-up of access to treatment[...]
A human rights approach to quality of life and health: Applications to public health programming [Spanish]
We post here the original Spanish text of Dr. Armando De Negri Filho’s contribution to this issue of Health and Human Rights, titled, “El enfoque de los derechos humanos en calidad de vida y salud y su aplicación en la reestructuración programática y la reorganización de los servicios: reflexiones alrededor de una estrategia de aplicación:” El [...]




