SECTION27 recently provided comments on the National Health Amendment Bill, B24 – 2011, to the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Health. Polity’s Chanel de Bruyn interviewed SECTION27 attorney Umunyana Rugege about the submission. To view the interview or download the submission click “Read more” below.
SECTION27 hosts groundbreaking Southern African Regional Activist Dialogue on a proposed Framework Convention on the Right to Health (FCGH)
1. Report on Southern African Dialogue
2. Programme
3. Participants list
4. Discussion Document
SECTION27 to host groundbreaking Southern African Regional Activist Dialogue on Strengthening Campaigns for the Right to Health and why we need a UN Framework Convention on the Right to Health.
This year a million people will die of HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa. Hundreds of thousands more will die of easily preventable diseases. Infant and maternal mortality remains intolerably high across the region. This situation demands an enhanced and urgent response to health, yet health systems are under enormous strain, many governments are lukewarm in their response to health and international donor assistance is flagging or going into reverse, particularly the commitment to fund universal access to HIV treatment.
At 4pm on 7 May 2010, leaders from various civil society,public and private sector organisations in South Africa and internationally, gathered for the launch of a new human rights organisation – SECTION27. Head of Legal and Litigation at SECTION27 Adilla Hassim, delivered a speech and COSATU Secretary General Zwelinzima Vavi delivered the keynote address.
Combining law and social mobilization to realize the right to health (2009) Journal of Human Rights Practice 1(1) 14 South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign
This chapter examines the experience of one of South Africa‟s foremost pro-poor civil society movements, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), and uses it to reflect on the role that was played by social justice organisations during Mbeki‟s presidency (1999-2008).
In February 2007 and May 2008 the AIDS Law Project made submissions on harm reduction legislation acting for and with the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. In June 2008 a letter was also sent to the Minister of Social Development, Zola Skweyiya, on the subject.
On 15 and 16 May 2008, a ground breaking case on the constitutionality of HIV testing policies that are used to exclude ALL people with HIV from recruitment to, promotion or foreign deployment in the SA National Defence Force was heard in the Pretoria High Court.
The court was asked to declare the blanket exclusion unconstitutional, order the appointment or promotion of individual’s adversely affected by the policy and to order the SANDF to devise a new policy within six months.
The ALP made a submission to the KZN Health Department regarding draft of the Kwazulu-Natal Health Care Bill, 2007. In our view, the KZN Bill has the potential to complement the broad legislative framework provided by the National Health Act, 2003. In particular, it has the potential to provide much of the needed detail in respect of which the Act expressly authorises the provinces to legislate, thereby enabling provincial and local government authorities to render health care services in accordance with the needs of the people of KZN.
South Africa has a strong legislative framework aimed at preventing HIV-related discrimination in the workplace.
Guidelines developed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Code of Good Practice on HIV/AIDS which is linked to the Employment Equity Act (EEA) provide useful information on the content of HIV workplace policies.
In South Africa, as in any society, people’s health is a major factor in both personal and social development. But in South Africa, unlike many other societies, people have a constitutional right both to access health services and to be treated in a way that should improve their health. For example, the rights to dignity, authonomy and equality should all inform and have an impact on the right to health. But despite this, South Africa is a very unhealth society and many indicators of health are getting worse. The HIV epidemic, violence against women, and homelessness all have a negative impact on health.
A week after Cabinet adopted the Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment for South Africa (“the Operational Plan”) in November 2003, MM – an inmate at Westville Correctional Centre and the seventh applicant in the case of EN v Government of Republic of South Africa (No 1) – was diagnosed withoesophageal candidiasis, an AIDS-defining illness.