Dr Flavia Bustreo, Professor Paul Hunt and other experts have co-authored an important report ‘Women’s and Children’s Health: Evidence of Human Rights Impact‘ for the WHO, demonstrating that human rights contribute to health gains for women and children.

The authors of this publication ask a challenging question: what is the evidence that the explicitly human rights-shaped interventions have contributed to improvements in women’s and children’s health? By way of an initial assessment, they conclude that applying human rights to women’s and children’s health policies, programmes, and other interventions not only helps governments comply with their binding national and international obligations, but also contributes to improving the health of women and children.

It also shows that few human rights-shaped women’s and children’s health policies are accompanied by research and evaluation that is well equipped to capture many of the human rights dimensions of the interventions. These and other findings have important implications and the study suggests what needs to be done, especially by States and international agencies.

A full copy of the report can be found here.