By Antoinette Stafford Cloete (Health Systems Trust: Communications Manager) and Siyabonga Gema (Health Systems Trust: Communications Officer)
Photo credit: UN/Photo (Sylvain Lietchti)
Over the next few weeks we will examine a variety of health-related topics in a series on women's health, including menopause, puberty, pregnancy and childbirth, cancers that affect women, violence against women, and the potential applications of artificial intelligence in improving the health of women at a human rights interface.
As we close out Human Rights month in South Africa we reflect on how far we have come with regards to human rights in health.
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly confirmed what was long known, but never adequately addressed: women's health concerns are not as important as those of men. Caroline Criado Perez compiled a number of statistics in her book "Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" that demonstrate the unequal treatment of women. She has argued that the data shows that "healthcare is systematically discriminating against women, leaving them chronically misunderstood and misdiagnosed".
In a paper presented at the International Conference on Reproductive Health in Mumbai, India, in 1998, jointly organised by the Indian Society for the Study of Reproduction and Fertility and the UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction, the author Dr Carmel Shadev outlines a departure from previous models of healthcare for women where they were merely tools without agency with regards to population development to a distinct emphasis on women's empowerment and individual needs, as well as the development of a growing body of knowledge regarding the relationship between health and human rights that connects novel ideas about health to the fight for social justice and respect for human dignity.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achiev[ing] gender equality and empower[ing] all women and girls sets a number of targets towards creating gender equality by 2030 which they now admit may not be met, but hope to create inroads. These are to:
- end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere;
- eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation;
- eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation;
- recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate;
- ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life;
- ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences;
- undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws;
- enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women; and
- adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.
In South Africa, the right to quality healthcare is enshrined in our constitution and stipulates that it is a basic human right accorded to all citizens of this country with further emphasis placed on sexual and reproductive health rights in Section 27. The provision of health services, especially for women, is therefore a crucial enabler in recognising and upholding the South African Constitution.
We can thus see that the conversation around women's health and their right to access has been ongoing, at least since the first public health conference held in 1978 in Alma Ata (in Kazakhstan) which didn't explicitly state the rights of women vis-à-vis access to healthcare, but does mention in the Declaration that resulted from this gathering that "people have a right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care".
A quick Google search for [women's health] will surface the more current debates raging around women's access to health care and the disparities that exist between investments in men's health against that of women.
Over the next few weeks we will look more closely at these issues and will include information on the work we do as an organisation to be enablers of health equity through our various health programmes that support women, in particular.
For comments or questions do email us at: communications@hst.org.za