Special Hearings — Health Sector Hearings — 1997-06-18

AUDREY CHAPMAN: Madam Chair, if it's alright what we'd like to do is an introduction that will provide a context for the district surgeons.
 First, on behalf of all of the members of the AAAS team I'd like to express appreciation for the invitation of the TRC to participate in these historic hearings.  Of the 16 Truth Commissions that have preceded South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission we are not aware that any of them have undertaken a sectoral analysis and we think that this is one of the many contributions that South Africa will have to the process of a country coming to terms with its past. 
 For the people who don't know what AAAS is, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is the largest federation of scientific, medical and engineering societies in the world.  It also has an individual membership of 143,000.  For 20 years we have had a human rights programme that has dealt with issues affecting the health, the scientific and the engineering sectors as well as the application of scientific methodologies to the protection and promotion of human rights.
 In 1989 the AAAS sponsored a medical mission of inquiry to South Africa that published a report "Apartheid Medicine", that examined how legal structures in the culture of apartheid denied the majority of South Africans decent medical care and contributed to massive violations by individuals and institutions in the health sector.  
 The report also examined the role South African professionals played in helping or hindering the promotion of human rights.
 When we received the invitation of the TRC, AAAS assembled a consultative team, including the US-based NGO's, the Physicians for Human Rights, the Committee for Health in Southern Africa, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Public Health Association and the American Nurses Association.  Six of the ten members of our team were introduced this morning.  I would like to introduce the additional four members.  Dr Barbara Nicholls, Miss Diane Kunz, Dr Gregory Bloch and Dr Jack Geiger.
 Why has the international community been concerned about violations of human rights in the health sector in South Africa?  Health professionals have a particular responsibility to protect and promote human rights, not only because human rights violations have devastating health consequences, but also the protection and promotion of human rights may be the most effective means to providing the conditions for health and well-being.  
 In South Africa in the past, and I might add in many other countries, a narrow conception of health and ethical responsibilities of health professionals has contributed greatly to silence and inaction in facing the suffering caused by human rights violations.
 There is also another reason that international NGOs and academics have been so concerned, and that is that the violations which took place in this country, and which we've heard about in great detail in the last two days, have been systematic violations of international human rights standards, and international codes of medical ethics.
 Next year will be the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  In the aftermath of the holocaust and the Nuremburg Trials, to which Bishop Tutu alluded at the opening of the hearings, the international community said "never again", and to that end formulated an international bill of human rights.
 Beginning with the Universal Declaration of human rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 the international community has drafted a series of instruments that recognise the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.   The Universal Declaration, broadly considered to be a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations, enumerates some two dozen specific rights to which all persons are entitled without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
 Two of the most fundamental protections are the right to life, liberty and security of person and the right to freedom from discrimination.  
 Other basic civil and political rights that are articulated in freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention and the right to a fair trial.
 In addition the text of the Universal Declaration sets forth a series of social and economic rights, among them that everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including food, clothing, housing, medical care and other social services.
  The principles enumerated in the Universal Declaration are further developed in a series of human rights conventions.  States which ratified these instruments and thereby become States parties are legally bound by their provisions.  Well over 130 countries, including virtually all major nations, have ratified the two most important of the instruments, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
 Our submission goes into some of the specifics of the standards that are in each one of these covenants that provide a framework for the health sector in South Africa.  Given the fact that we are running short of time I won't go into that. 
 But I would like to point out that in 1949, the year after the Universal Declaration was formulated there was, of course, the momentous election in South Africa which set the country on the course of apartheid, which in its very nature violated these fundamental standards.  
 I think that it's something that we can all celebrate that as we move into the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that the political system here has changed fundamentally and symbolically as well as South Africa has begun to ratify the International Conventions.  We hope that they will provide an active set of standards that the new and reformed medical sector will now seek to embody.