At the request of Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), PHR submitted a statement for the record as part of "Rape as a Weapon of War: Accountability for Sexual Violence in Conflict" hearing held on April 1st, 2008 by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee.
>> Learn more about rape as a weapon of war.
Re "In Global Battle on AIDS, Bush Creates Legacy” (front page, Jan. 5):
President Bush has shown great compassion and leadership in founding the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or Pepfar. When historians look back at his administration, they will see that he saved at least a million lives.
But we must keep pace with this pandemic. To do so will require a greater investment than before — $50 billion or more over five years. Programs initiated under Pepfar have shown great success in treating and preventing H.I.V.-AIDS.
But for these efforts to be sustainable, additional funds need to be spent that address severe health worker shortages and strengthen fragile health systems, to integrate H.I.V.-AIDS care with other health services, and to tailor H.I.V. prevention to the most vulnerable groups, including women, children and injection drug users.
We know that Pepfar has saved innumerable lives. Let's give it the chance to save millions more.
~ Eric P. Goosby
San Francisco, Jan. 8, 2008
The writer is the chief medical officer, Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, and adviser to the Health Action AIDS Campaign, Physicians for Human Rights.
On December 21, 2007, the Human Rights Leadership Coalition, of which PHR is a member, sent a letter urging Secretary Rice and President Bush to unequivocally call for the restoration of an independent judiciary in Pakistan and the lifting of restrictions on the media, particularly television. This letter follows a meeting with Secretary Rice on December 10, Human Rights Day, and an earlier letter, sent on November 13.
In the most recent letter, the coalition says that "the removal of independent-minded judges has rendered free and fair elections impossible, while strict curbs on media further impede accurate reporting on the political and electoral process."
PHR and other NGO's called on the UN Human Rights Council to preserve the recently expired mandates of both the Darfur Expert Group and the Special Rapporteur for Sudan. The Expert Group should be preserved until such time as its recommendations concerning Darfur are substantially implemented by the government of Sudan. This Expert Group should be led by a qualified individual who has the time and resources to monitor these recommendations in a detailed manner, and give constructive suggestions and aid to the government of Sudan on how to carry out their implementation.
The work of the Special Rapporteur should resume its focus on the whole of Sudan. Given the precariousness of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005, renewed efforts to monitor and report on abuses and implementation of human rights reforms under the CPA should be urgently undertaken by the Special Rapporteur on Sudan. The Special Rapporteur is in a unique position to monitor patterns of human rights abuses, legislative reform and other issues throughout the different regions of Sudan.
Peru’s persistently high maternal mortality ratio, the second highest in South America, dramatically illustrates systemic inequities that ravage the overall society and in turn reflect systematic violations of human rights and vast disparities in the health care system.
On November 13, 2007, in response to recent events in Pakistan, human rights groups, including PHR, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice urging a significant increase in U.S. pressure on the Government of Pakistan. The groups called on the U.S. to pressure Pakistan to end martial law and release those who have been detained or are under house arrest. The groups also called on President Bush to cut off all security assistance until these repressive steps are reversed.
On October 9, 2007, Physicians for Human Rights and Health Gap, US leaders of the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative, the civil society-led network of the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), sent an open letter to the 2008 presidential candidates. The letter offered several recommendations for global health proposals, based on the input of health professionals in sub-Saharan Africa and in the United States.
On October 4, 2007, the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration held hearings on the deplorable state of medical and mental health care for asylum seekers and other immigrants detained in harsh, prison conditions throughout the US. Sixty-two detainees have died in custody over the past three years and, while these deaths have yet to be fully investigated, advocates for detainees' health and human rights have reason to believe many could have been prevented with adequate medical care.
PHR advisor Dr. Allen Keller, Director of the Bellevue/NYU Center for Survivors of Torture, testified on behalf of PHR and the Center (testimony, pdf), warning that inadequate health care and harmful detention conditions – documented in PHR’s 2003 report From Persecution to Prison – appear to have worsened over the past four years.