Publications

The Alliance Strategy (2016-2020) HIV, Health and Rights and theory of change describe ‘using a person-centred approach’ to increase access to quality HIV and health services and to realise the human rights of people living with HIV and others affected by HIV. As the HIV response becomes increasingly biomedical, we believe it must also be firmly embedded in rights-based and community-led approaches, and in the principles of Greater Involvement of People living with HIV and Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention, all of which have been the bedrock of the AIDS response so far. At its most basic level, we look at health from an individual perspective, placing individuals at the centre of our HIV response. We consider health as much more than the absence of illness and think holistically about an individual’s full range of needs, desires, capacities and human rights.

Violations of the rights of LGBTIQ persons persist though not consistently documented. Denial of access to public services including education, health care and housing exist. Negative stereotypes against LGBTIQ persons are perpetuated through policies and practices of some government officials and private actors such as schools. Hate related violence, including killings of LGBTIQ persons, have been reported. Meanwhile, there is an absence of a comprehensive national legal framework recognizing the rights of LGBTIQ persons, prohibiting SOGIESC-based discrimination and ensuring provision of adequate services for LGBTIQ persons in difficult situations. This report was prepared by LGBTIQ civil society organizations (CSOs) after series consultations to identify priority issues and recommendations.

The report documented various narratives of psychological and physical abuse, including domestic violence, forced marriage, and attempts by family members to change their sexual orientation and gender identity. It looks into other social and economic factors, such as financial dependence on families, and how these affect their lives in Timorese society. Among its recommendations were for government and civil society to facilitate leadership-building opportunities and support groups and to provide lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men "opportunities to enhance their own capacities to help make them active and capable advocates for their own rights."

This book, arising from the Adelaide conference, is intended for the international Health in All Policies (HiAP) community – including people who are already practising HiAP and aim to sustain it, helping those who are thinking about doing HiAP to progress, and helping others to start planning HiAP. The case studies in this book highlight the diversity of applications of HiAP and its multiple processes, dimensions and outcomes in different countries and regions and political systems. It includes experiences of HiAP at the city level, such as in Quito, Ecuador, at the regional/state level such as in California and the national level, for example in China. While there are many different versions of and contexts for HiAP, there are also some shared lessons across countries and regions.

Our 2016 report, Lessons learned from national initiatives to end child marriage, explores what lessons can be drawn from the increasing number of national strategies, action plans, and country-wide initiatives to address child marriage around the world, particularly in relation to their implementation across sectors. This report considers the experiences in 11 countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nepal, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It will be of particular interest to Girls Not Brides members in countries where (i) a national initiatives is still in development, (ii) is about to be rolled out, or (iii) is currently being implemented.

The right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a human right. References to the right to health are found in international and regional law, treaties, United Nations declarations, and national laws and constitutions across the globe. The right to health guarantees everyone a system of health protection and the freedom to make decisions about their health regardless of who they are, where they live, what they believe or what they do. Elements of the right to health include access to health services, including access to sexual and reproductive health services. Fulfilling the right to health is inter-related with and interdependent upon other rights including the right to adequate sanitation, food, decent housing, healthy working conditions and a clean environment. The new report from UNAIDS, Right to Health, highlights that the people most marginalized in society and most affected by HIV are still facing major challenges in accessing the health and social services they urgently need. However, the report also gives innovative examples of how marginalized communities are responding.

A global paradox is emerging in which care workers - who are largely migrant women, often working in informal home settings - make a considerable contribution to public health in many countries but are themselves exposed to health risks, face barriers to accessing care, and enjoy few labour and social protections. WHO has produced a new report on this population group, collating evidence across sectors. This report breaks new ground in casting a wide net across disciplines – health, labour, employment, social protection, social services, law, immigration, cross-border movement and citizenship – to shed light on a particular population group that both provides care as well as needs it to maintain their own health and well-being. It looks at the lives of these migrant women care workers as well as the situation for their households left behind. It takes a transnational perspective appropriate to our interconnected world. 

"Leaving no one behind" is a centrefold principle in the Sustainable Development Agenda. Those "left behind" are a vastly heterogeneous group. They face a wide range of barriers to health services that differ across countries, communities and individuals. As such, approaches to health system strengthening to leave no one behind need to account for this heterogeneity and the complexity of barriers. Some migrants, in particular those experiencing poverty and social exclusion, face intersecting and compounding barriers.  This paper emphasizes that leaving no one behind entails full realization of human rights, without discrimination on the basis of sex, age, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, disability or other status.

The NACP-IV (2012-2017) has entered in the last year of its implementation. NACP-IV aims to consolidate the gains made till now while making further strides with a goal of accelerating reversal and integrating response. NACP-IV had two objectives - Reduce new infections by 50% (2007 Baseline of NACP-III) and provide comprehensive care and support to all persons living with HIV/AIDS and treatment services for all those who require it.

The Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Service Package for Men and Adolescent Boys has been developed to support providers of sexual and reproductive health services. It aims to increase the range and quality of sexual and reproductive services provided that meet the specific and diverse needs of men and adolescents boys. It covers men and adolescent boys in all their diversity, and takes a positive approach to sexual and reproductive health, seeing this not just as the absence of disease, but the positive expression of one’s gender, sex and sexuality. In doing so, this service package contributes to efforts to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as prioritized in the Sustainable Development Goals. This package is in no way intended to detract from the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and adolescent girls, nor to divert resources, funding or attention from much-needed SRH services and programmes for women and adolescent girls.