Aggravated homosexuality will be punished by death, according to a new bill tabled in Parliament of Uganda on 13 October 2009. The private member’s bill was tabled by Ndorwa West MP, David Bahati (NRM). A person commits aggravated homosexuality when the victim is a person with disability or below the age of 18, or when the offender is HIV-positive. The bill thus equates aggravated homosexuality to aggravated defilement among people of different sexes, which also carries the death sentence. The Bill, entitled the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, also states that anyone who commits the offence of homosexuality will be liable to life imprisonment. A person charged with the offence will have to undergo a mandatory medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status. The bill further states that anybody who attempts to commit the offence is liable to imprisonment for seven years. The same applies to anybody who aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality or anybody who keeps a house or room for the purpose of homosexuality. The bill also proposes stiff sentences for people promoting homosexuality – a fine of 100 million Ugandan shillings or prison sentences of five to seven years.
Values, Policies and Rights
This study considered whether female youths from communities with higher sexual violence were at greater risk of negative reproductive health outcomes. It used data from a 2003 nationally representative household survey of youths aged 15–24 years in South Africa. The key independent variable was whether a woman had ever been threatened or forced to have sex. The variable was aggregated to the community level to determine, with control for individual-level experience with violence, whether the community-level prevalence of violence was associated with HIV status and adolescent pregnancy among female, sexually experienced, never-married youths. The study found that youths from communities with greater sexual violence were significantly more likely to have experienced an adolescent pregnancy or to be HIV-positive than were youths from communities experiencing lower sexual violence. Youths from communities with greater community-level violence were also less likely to have used a condom at their last sexual encounter. Individual-level violence was only associated with condom non-use. Programmes to reduce adolescent pregnancies and HIV risk in South Africa and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa must address sexual violence as part of effective prevention strategies.
Strict observance of state sovereignty, once a mainstay of international relations, has given way to a global concern to protect human rights wherever they are threatened. On paper, at least, Africa shares this international commitment in its establishment of monitoring bodies like the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council. But how central are human rights to the actual conduct of international relations by the continent? Are they merely a ‘variable concern’? There are no simplistic answers to this question. Africa has long been committed to supporting the rule of law, safeguarding refugees, protecting women and children, encouraging youth participation, and promoting democracy. But, as ever, national interest still plays an important role when it comes to defining how the continent relates to the world. The author argues that China’s policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of its trading partners has the potential to foster corruption, fuel armed conflicts and encourage human rights violations. African governments, it is proposed, should ensure that their emerging foreign policy solutions, whatever they are, do not compromise the commitment they have already made to foster human rights and good governance.
The Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, which came into effect in 2008, has established itself as a mechanism with huge potential and which promotes dialogue and a level playing field for all countries undergoing the review of their human rights record. Building on the Commonwealth Secretariat’s observations and analysis of the process, and the seminars it has conducted with member states, Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights consolidates the lessons learned so far, speaking equally to the three major stakeholders in the process – to states, to national human rights institutions, and to civil society organisations. An effective UPR mechanism will enhance the promotion of human rights across the world. It is therefore essential for the key players to understand and advance the UPR process including at the implementation phase. This publication describes UPR, shares experiences and provides analysis of the Commonwealth countries that reported in the first year of the UPR process.
The second volume of Health and Human Rights brings one more piece to the set of educational materials available from multiple sources, mostly, although not exclusively, in the English language. Intended primarily for health practitioners, the book incorporates a succinct introduction laying out essential concepts, principles and mechanisms relevant to the congruence between public health and human rights. Ten case studies follow, each constructed around clearly set learning objectives, including questions to be addressed, highlights of the public health issue and references to specific human rights relevant to the case study, sources of pertinent information and bibliography. The case studies focus on major public health issues such as maternal mortality, female genital mutilation, access to medicine and prison health. They constitute a useful tool for classroom education as well as self-learning. As Internet access expands in low- and medium-income countries, the material presented could serve to structure a distance-learning facility (a field in which one of the co-authors specialises) with interactivity between learners and their mentors.
Several health-related budget decisions taken in the past financial year in South Africa are reported to have violated the Constitution, the National Health Act, the Public Finance Management Act and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, according to a group of activists, researchers, unionists, health workers and academics, called the Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF). The Forum has written to the ministers of health and finance, expressing concern over the effect of budgeting practices within the public health system on HIV and AIDS programmes, including on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes, citing the moratorium on starting new patients on ARVs in the Free State as one example of such a decision.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has drafted the 98-page International Guidelines on Sexuality Education. The guidelines are still being finalised but a draft version suggests key areas that a sex education curriculum should cover at four different age levels between five and 18. The topics include relationships, reproduction, gender inequality and various aspects of sexuality, but conservative groups in the United States have focused on a handful of suggested learning areas that they view as overly explicit and inappropriate for young children. Various critics have taken issue with suggestions that teachers discuss homosexuality, contraception, and gender-based violence. However, defenders of the guide assert that ‘it's better they have the right information than the wrong information.’ A report in the New York Times asserted that the controversy had caused the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), a key partner, to pull out of the project, but a UNFPA spokesperson refused to confirm this, saying only that the organisation was still in discussion with UNESCO about making the publication ‘more context specific’.
Four United Nations agencies and offices will be amalgamated to create a new single entity within the organisation to promote the rights and well-being of women worldwide and to work towards gender equality. The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) will be merged. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said he was ‘particularly gratified’ that the Assembly had accepted his proposal for ‘a more robust promotion’ of women’s rights under the new entity. Mr Ban said that he had appointed more women to senior posts than at any other time in the history of the UN, including nine women to the rank of under-secretary-general. The number of women in senior posts has increased by 40% under his tenure.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocols on Health (1999), and Mining (1997) requires member states to co-operate in delivering and improving occupational health in the region’s mining sector. But the rights of mineworkers and other workers to health and safety have not been realised, according to this policy brief. Harmonisation of standards in the region, and monitoring of compliance with standards, is now more critical in the age of free trade agreements. These agreements should not impact negatively on workers’ health, through the exporting of hazardous processes within the region to where regulation and enforcement is less stringent, as well as through pressure to reduce occupational health requirements to allow companies to become more competitive. Stakeholders should hold SADC and member states to the realisation of workers’ health and safety rights and take action when rights are not upheld and targets are not met. They can also identify issues and areas in which collaboration is necessary and ensure that resources and strategies are in place to deliver what is needed.
These guidelines recognise that all types of work are hazardous and persons at work are exposed to situations that may result into injury, disease or even death. In Uganda, the authors argue that the health sector is loaded with a wide variety of situations where health and safety issues are crucial. Additionally, while the economic cost of occupational risks is high, public awareness of safety and health tends to be quite low. The Ugandan health sector requires a standardised framework for workplace safety and health, including responding specifically to HIV as a workplace hazard. The first chapter gives background information on occupational health and safety (OHS). The second addresses the basic OHS principles and interventions. The third deals with management of HIV and AIDS as a specific workplace hazard, while the fourth covers management of the other common hazards that exist at the health workplace. The final chapter deals with implementation of a workplace safety and health programme, including aspects of monitoring.