Call for contributions: Racism and the right to health
Issued by
Special Rapporteur on the right to health
Last updated
26 July 2022
Closed
Submissions now online (See below)
Issued by
Special Rapporteur on the right to health
Last updated
26 July 2022
Closed
Submissions now online (See below)
Within the framework of Human Rights Council resolution 42/16, the Special Rapporteur on the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health has identified racism and the right to health as one of her priorities during her tenure (See A/HRC/47/28 paras 87-94). In compliance with her mandate and in line with this priority she has decided to devote her next thematic report to the General Assembly in October 2022 to the theme of “Racism and the right to health.”
The Special Rapporteur underlines that racism is a key social determinant of health and a driver of health inequities. With this report, she would like to shed light on the impact of racism and discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, descent, caste, national or ethnic origin or migrant or refugee status, on the enjoyment of the right to health. She will focus on its impact particularly on Black people, persons of African descent, Arabs and Muslims, Asians and persons of Asian descent, migrants and persons belonging to indigenous peoples and minorities and the intersection of factors such as poverty, or discrimination based on age, sex, gender identity, expression, sexual orientation, disability, migration status, health status e.g. HIV, Albinism etc. and the rural and urban divide.
She intends to consider the historic perspective of the impact of past and contemporary forms of racism on the right to health and on the ability of individuals and communities to realize their right to access health care, services and goods including the realization of sexual and reproductive health rights and on the ability of States to fulfill their obligations under the right to health. The focus of the report will be on the impact of racism on human dignity, life, non-discrimination, equality, the right to control one's health, including the right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment and experimentation as well their entitlement to a system of health protections. In so doing, and by adopting the anti-coloniality1 and anti-racism frameworks, the report will expose the impact of the living legacy of past and ongoing forms of racism, apartheid, slavery coloniality and oppressive structures in the global health including the economic architecture and funding, national health systems on racialized people.
Importantly, the Special Rapporteur will adopt an intersectional approach and take into account the multiple forms of discrimination affecting persons experiencing racism and related discrimination in the context of health care. She will analyze the links between inequalities in accessing adequate health care and social disparities, sex, age, gender, poverty, class, nationality, exclusion, disability and the rural and urban divide and related systems of oppression.
The Special Rapporteur would also like to identify good practices that affirm the right to a system of health protection (i.e. health care and the underlying social determinants of health) that provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health.
She seeks examples of how to combat racism and discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin – in accessing health care health facilities, goods and services and the underlying determinants of health.
The questionnaires can be downloaded below in English (original language), French and Spanish (unofficial translations). Responses can address some of the questions or all of them, as feasible or preferred.
Inputs may be sent by e-mail by 2 June 2022.
1/ Coloniality is a concept coined by Walter Mignolo around 1995,4 refers to the living legacies of
European colonialism in social orders and knowledge systems, which created racial hierarchies that
enable the social discrimination that has outlived formal colonialism. See A/HRC/47/28 para 9.
Please note that all responses will be published on the official webpage of the Special Rapporteur by default unless it is indicated that the submission and/or the supporting documentation should be kept confidential.
You can choose to answer all or some of the questions below. (750 words limit per question).
In her first report to the Human Right Council, the Special Rapporteur echoed Prof. Charles Ngwena’s reflections on racism, and noted they would extend to ethnicity as well.1
“In 2018, Charles Nwgena noted:
[…] Race remains an associational criterion that people often claim as part of their identity or that may be ascribed to them by others or the political community of which they are part. Race has political implications where the body politic is racialized, overtly or covertly, in the sense that racial differentiation is tethered to hierarchized essences that carry social, political and economic meanings that may be positive or negative for the racialized subject, depending on which side of the “colour line” the person falls or is deemed to fall.”2
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination defines “racial discrimination” as: “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” (Article 1)
The Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in 2001 in Durban, (South Africa) by the United Nations - known as the Durban Conference urged States, individually and through international cooperation, to enhance measures to fulfil the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, with a view to eliminating disparities in health status, (…), which might result from racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. (Durban Programme of Action, para. 109)
In 2009, Durban Review Conference accepted the interpretation given by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to the definition of the concept of racial discrimination as contained in the Convention, so as to address multiple or aggravated forms of racial discrimination, as reflected in its outcome document.
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