Women suffering domestic abuse who are financially dependent on their abusers can now report the crime with the assurance that they will be able to get financial and medical support from the state, thanks to Angola’s new law on domestic violence. Women’s campaigners have welcomed the introduction of the new law, which was signed into the statue books on 8 July 2011, and which criminalises domestic violence and offers protection to victims and their families. Until now domestic violence had not been illegal in Angola – and on the rare occasions it reached court, it was prosecuted under rape, assault and battery laws. The new law guarantees support to victims, through safe houses, medical treatment and financial and legal help. In addition, violence has been designated as a ‘public crime’, which means anyone can report it to the police, not just the victim. However, no details have yet been given about how much money will be made available to victims.
Values, Policies and Rights
In the run up to the UN summit on non-communicable diseases, there are fears that industry interests might be trumping evidence based public health interventions. Will anything valuable be agreed? With only weeks to go before the summit, years of negotiations seem to be stalling. Discussions have stopped on the document that forms the spine of the summit, and charities are concerned that governments are trying to wriggle out of commitments. For example food is proving to be a sticking point again. Changes to language in the latest version of the draft document are subtle but clearly important. While the so called G77 group of lower income states—including India, China, Kenya, and Brazil—argue that saturated fat should be reduced in processed products, as well as sugar and salt, that recommendation is being resisted by the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU. Other areas of industry interest are proving contentious.
Because there has been so little research into the rape of men during war, it's not possible to say with any certainty why it happens or even how common it is, according to this article. Ugandan activists report a veil of secrecy surrounding male rape - the organisations working on sexual and gender-based violence don't talk about it and it’s systematically silenced, even in reports, the author notes. To fill the gap in data, the Refugee Law Project (RLP) in Uganda produced a documentary in 2010 called Gender Against Men, but the producer of the film alleges attempts were made to stop him by well-known international aid agencies. RLP further alleges that one of its funders refused to provide any more funding unless RLP promised that 70% of their client base was female, despite a critical shortage of health and support programmes for vulnerable men in Uganda. RLP calls on African governments, international and local aid agencies and human rights defenders at the United Nations to acknowledge male rape as humanitarian and medical crisis needing urgent attention.
According to this article, it is common in Uganda to hear arguments that men rape women because women wear indecent clothing or invite men into their homes or drink late into the night with men or accept a ride home. Much less discussion focuses on the male’s responsibility. The author of the article examines an incident ofalleged rape reported in July 2011 in Uganda’s national media. The media and the public condemned the complainant as a reckless and oversexed con-woman, the author of this article notes. Ensuing debates and responses in the media since the story broke have implied that even as rape victims, women bear sole responsibility for protecting themselves. With regard to sexual violence against women in Uganda, the author concludes it is time men started seeing women as human beings and not sexualised objects.
The authors of this article warn that new vaccines are likely to be more complex and expensive than those that have been used so effectively in the past, and they could have a multifaceted effect on the disease that they are designed to prevent, as has already been seen with pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Deciding which new vaccines a country should invest in therefore requires not only sound advice from international organisations such as the world Health Organisation (WHO) but also a well-informed national immunisation advisory committee with access to appropriate data for local disease burden. The authors discuss how the introduction of vaccines might need modification of immunisation schedules and delivery procedures and they outline progressive methods to finance new vaccines in low-income countries.
This article reports on two women who died in the process of using or seeking maternal health services in Uganda. These cases are now subjects of a lawsuit filed in March by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, a Ugandan nonprofit group, who contend that the government violated the two women’s right to life by failing to provide them with basic maternal care. Dr. Olive Sentumbwe-Mugisa, a Ugandan obstetrician and adviser with the World Health Organization, participated in the Health Ministry’s investigations of the deaths of the women named in the lawsuit against the government concluded that both women arrived in time to be saved. “We are in a state of emergency as far as maternal services are concerned,” Dr. Sentumbwe-Mugisa said. “We need to focus on the quality of care in our hospitals and address it in the shortest period of time. That will mean more resources. We cannot run away from that.” While the attorney general’s office has responded that replied that “isolated acts” cited in the case “cannot be used to dim the untiring efforts in the Health Sector, ” the authors raise that the case has raised attention and debate, including amongst lawmakers, to the way government has spent its funds more widely, including on military equipment, given the poor improvement in maternal health services.
Human Rights Watch argues that migrants are also especially vulnerable to communicable disease because of substandard living environments, limited sanitation, and cultural and social dislocation, making them vital targets for public health surveillance and intervention. According to Department of Health policies, everyone in South Africa should have access to treatment for communicable disease without cost. Any barrier to prevention and treatment of communicable disease for vulnerable mobile and migrant populations is unwise from a public health perspective, but also a violation of South African and international law. South Africa has recognised the importance of access to health care for vulnerable and migrant populations in its laws and policy documents, yet continues to allow unlawful discrimination by health care staff, undermining efforts to contain disease and improve treatment outcomes. In over 100 interviews with migrants, advocates, health care and other service providers in both urban and border communities, Human Rights Watch found that South Africa’s failure to protect asylum seekers and refugees from deportation and violence leads both to increased disease and injury, and increased barriers to treatment for those conditions.
The author of this article examines the availability and strength of evidence on climate change, economics and health outcomes for policy makers to draw on in making health policy decisions. Eighteen available economic studies were included in the study. The author found that in those studies that put a value on the predicted increased mortality from climate change, the health damages represented an important fraction of overall economic losses. Equally health impacts were important in considering broader measures affecting the economics of climate change beyond the health sector such as agriculture and water supply. Global adaptation cost studies carried out so far indicate costs to the health sector of roughly US$2-5 billion annually (mid-estimates). However, these costs are argued to be an underestimate of the true costs, due to omitted health impacts, omitted economic impacts, and the costs of health actions in other sectors. No published studies compare the costs and benefits of specific health interventions to protect health from the negative effects of climate change. The authors suggest that until further climate change-specific economic studies have been conducted, decision makers should selectively draw on published studies of the costs and benefits of environmental health interventions.
This paper reports the results of an assessment of the mental health policies of Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. The WHO Mental Health Policy Checklist was used to evaluate the most current mental health policy in each country. All four national policies addressed community-based services, the integration of mental health into general health care, promotion of mental health and rehabilitation. Only the Zambian policy presented a clear vision, with the other three countries spelling out values and principles, the need to establish a coordinating body for mental health, and to protect the human rights of people with mental health problems. None included all the basic elements of a policy, nor specified sources and levels of funding for implementation. Only Uganda sufficiently outlined a mental health information system, research and evaluation, while only Ghana comprehensively addressed human resources and training requirements. No country had an accompanying strategic mental health plan to allow the development and implementation of concrete strategies and activities. The authors recommend strengthening capacity of key stakeholders in public (mental) health and policy development, the creation of a culture of inclusive and dynamic policy development, and coordinated action to optimise use of available resources.
In this article, Horace Campbell charts Africa’s exploitative history of ‘aid’ and the struggle to establish a new global system rooted in dignity, equality and genuine social justice. Throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America the author argues that international capitalism has plundered the resources of the planet. Today, ‘international plunderers’ work with local African allies and sometimes their governments in extracting resources. The author argues that some African leaders have been compromised by their “development partners” and have remained silent in the face of intensified exploitation of Africa. The continued plunder of resources by oil companies and others has grown in this period, and observers have pointed to the constant interconnections between wars, violence and economics. Similarly, as Africans move into the twenty-first century there is increased interest in the genetic resources and fresh water of Africa, especially the water resources of the Congo River and its tributaries. Thus far there is not enough work on how this century will impact the lives of Africans.