Removing human rights barriers to health
Overview
Human rights barriers include stigma and discrimination, punitive laws, policies and practices, violence, harassment, gender, and social and economic inequalities. Human right barriers negatively affect health outcomes and impede national and local responses to HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, especially when they:
- limit the involvement of people living with HIV, TB or malaria, key populations and key population-led groups in the design and implementation of policies and programmes for prevention, treatment, care, and support services.
- create, perpetuate, or increase vulnerability to HIV, TB or malaria among individuals or groups, or have the potential to do so.
- jeopardize or hinder national and local HIV, TB or malaria programmes, including access to prevention, treatment, care, and support services for people who need them.
Commitments
The Global Fund Strategy 2023 – 2028 recognizes the need for greater investment to include and expand programmes to remove human rights barriers in national responses to the three diseases. The Global AIDS Strategy 2021 – 2026 and the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS both recognise that human rights violations, stigma and discrimination undermine HIV responses. They both have set priority actions to achieve the targets of ending stigma and discrimination, and to ensure accountability for HIV-related human rights violations. The 2018 UN Political Declaration on the fight against Tuberculosis sets out specific target for United Nations Member States including a commitment to taking concrete action to “end TB stigma and all forms of discrimination, and developing integrated, people-centred, community-based and gender-responsive health services based on human rights.”
UNDP’s approach
Key programmes for removing human rights barriers to HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria services
Programmes that focus on the following areas have proved effective in reducing and removing human rights barriers. According to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, these include programmes that:
Case studies
Case study: Breaking Down Barriers initiative
As part of its Breaking Down Barriers initiative, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund) is providing support throughout the duration of the 2017-2022 Strategy to 20 countries where needs, opportunities, capacities and partnerships provide real possibilities to scale-up programmes for the removal of human rights barriers that will result in important gains for the health of those affected.
This support takes the form of:
- the provision of over $78 million in 2017-2019 and up to $130 million in 2020-2022 in additional funds for programmes to reduce human rights-related barriers to services.
- the implementation of baseline assessments.
- multi-stakeholder meetings in country to review the assessments and jointly develop and fund a comprehensive response to the human rights barriers.
- support in grant-making for the inclusion, scale-up and implementation of the human rights programmes.
- mid-term and end-term studies to assess the impact of the scale-up of human rights programmes.
- assistance to implementers in the form of longer-term technical assistance aimed at increasing their capacity to implement good quality, integrated programs to reduce human rights-related barriers to services.
Case study: Kenyan sex worker legal literacy campaigns help to reduce violence and increase access to justice for sex workers
In Kenya, the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme began as a group of sex workers and bar hostesses working together against HIV, violence and exploitation. The civil society organisation has grown to provide a number of services, including legal literacy and legal support services to protect and empower sex workers. The organisation has supported increased awareness of rights and promoted access to justice through, for instance:
- training sex worker peer educators on law, human rights and access to justice, enabling them to act as paralegals to provide legal advice, counselling and support to other sex workers
- working with the media to raise awareness of sex workers’ rights and to reduce discrimination and violence
- establishing a forum to bring sex workers and police together to foster mutual understanding and respect for rights
- monitoring and documenting human rights violations against sex workers, particularly by health workers and police
- establishing a quarterly legal aid clinic where sex workers can get advice from lawyers
- supporting sex workers to claim redress in the courts for wrongful arrests and violations of their rights.
Case study: Sensitizing policy and strengthening legal literacy in Asia and the Pacific
In Thailand, police training has been implemented through a partnership between the Royal Thai Police, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Health, the Foundation for AIDS Rights and UNDP. Since 2013, the Innovative Learning Programme on HIV and Human Rights in the Context of Law Enforcement has sensitized police officers to issues concerning human rights, people living with HIV and key populations.
In Nepal, UNDP supported the roll out of a toolkit to empower women to protect their rights in health-care settings. The toolkit covers know your rights, how to access justice if rights are violated and how to improve transparency and accountability of health care providers.
Learn more: Review of Country Progress in Addressing Legal and Policy Barriers to Universal Access to HIV services in Asia and the Pacific