Health and Human Rights

Abstract

The Reverend Nicolau Costa, a Roman Catholic priest in Kuito, Angola, is featured on the cover this month for his unrelenting work as an unofficial and unpaid investigator of human rights violations by government soldiers and police officers. “As a priest I go everywhere, mostly by foot, but the population is traumatized to such an extent that many people don't complain anymore,” explained Father Costa. “But it's hard for me to keep quiet. I speak what I feel, what I see. What I see is horrible.” In recent years, the Roman Catholic Church has become one of the most important independent voices in Angola, where government corruption and violence have claimed more than 30 000 lives in Kuito and devastated the physical and mental health of countless others since the country gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. In her essay “Where Are the Women?” published in the October 21, 2001, issue of The Nation, Katha Pollit asks, “Are there any people on earth more wretched than the women of Afghanistan? As if poverty, hunger, disease, drought, ruined cities and a huge refugee crisis weren't bad enough, under Taliban rule they can't work, they can't go to school, they have virtually no health care, they can't leave their houses without a male escort, they are beaten in the streets if they lift the mandatory burqua even to relieve a coughing fit.” In combination with the stricture requiring the windows in Afghan houses to be painted over to prevent men passing by from glimpsing women, the burqua has resulted in an outbreak of osteomalicia, a bone disease caused by malnutrition and lack of sunlight. A human rights perspective is vital for all public health workers, not just those in such places as Angola and Afghanistan. Sofia Gruskin, JD, MIA, director of International Health and Human Rights at the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, recently joined the Journal's editorial staff as an associate editor for health and human rights. Her thoughtful article featured herein, “Understanding and Responding to Youth Substance Use: The Contribution of a Health and Human Rights Framework” (p 1954), not only reorients thinking about the worldwide epidemic of substance use among young people, it also provides a solid approach for improving their lives. Other papers on health and human rights published in this issue include an editorial by Cheryl E. Easley, Stephen Marks, and Russell Morgan entitled “The Challenge and Place of International Human Rights in Public Health” (p 1922) and a research article by Vincent Iacopino and colleagues entitled “A Population-Based Assessment of Human Rights Abuses Committed Against Ethnic Albanian Refugees From Kosovo” (p 2013). Fred Halliday, professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, wrote in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11: “The chances of a discussion on the uses of violence is [sic] contradicted by talk of a clash of civilisations and of incompatibilty of Western and Islamic values. … The argument will not be settled by invoking cultural clashes or trawling around in holy texts for quotes for and against violence and resistance. All religions have, if people chose to dig them out, texts and precedents which legitimise violence, terror, and senseless sacrifice by individuals. … The framework for addressing these issues, of conflict between states and of differences within them, is not cultural or civilisational at all, but universal, based on international law and the principles of the United Nations” (The Guardian, September 16, 2001). Accordingly, we welcome Professor Gruskin to the editorial staff and, in doing so, seek with her to—as she writes—“[broaden] the dialogue on new ways to promote and protect the health of [all] that are effective, as well as—or precisely because they are—consistent with human rights principles.”