FXB Center for Health & Human Rights | Harvard University

November 20, 2014

New FXB Policy Brief: Syrian Refugees in Jordan

The violent conflict in Syria has caused the displacement of almost 11 million people to date. Over 3 million refugees have flowed into Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. Their numbers have severely strained humanitarian capacity, which is further weakened by insufficient funding and inadequate policies. The situation is a grave one for the estimated 600,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. This brief presents an assessment of the most urgent issues…

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October 28, 2014

New Internships for Harvard Students Starting January 2015

2015 FXB Field Education Internships in Rwanda and Colombia The FXB Center is offering new internship opportunities to Harvard students starting in January 2015. Selected applicants will work in the field of community development in either Rwanda or Colombia. Summer internships are also available. More detailed information on the Rwanda internship and how to apply can be found here. Click here for further information on applying for an internship in…

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October 28, 2014

Debating Rape-Related Abortion in Peru

Abortion in Cases of Rape: Toward A Sincere Debate By Camila Gianella October 28, 2014. According to the last Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted in Peru, 2.8 percent of women aged 15 to 49 who were in a relationship reported having been raped by their partners in the last 12 months. When projected to encompass the general population, this indicates that around 128,307 Peruvian women in that age range…

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October 28, 2014

Blog: Alicia Yamin on Why Ebola is a Human Rights Crisis

Health worker in an Ebola screening unit in Kenema government hospital

The catastrophic Ebola crisis unfolding in West Africa offers many lessons, not least for global anti-poverty efforts. These will culminate in a set of targets, to be agreed by the United Nations in 2015, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First of all, the crisis should lead to a re-think of the triumphalism that has marked some of the global health debate in recent years, with some projecting a…

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October 20, 2014

Article: FXB Policy Director Alicia Ely Yamin in a Specal Series of The Lancet

Along with Rifat Atun, professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and Julio Frenk, HSPH dean, FXB policy director Alicia Ely Yamin has contributed to a Special Series issue of The Lancet released October 16, 2014. The theme of the issue is universal health care in Latin America. Human Rights-based Approaches to Health in Latin America, co-authored with Ariel Frisancho of ForoSalud, in Peru,…

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September 4, 2014May 3, 2023

On Demand Video: Women’s Lives Matter: The Impact of Maternal Death on Families & Communities

On Twitter: @FXBHarvard; Hashtag: #ACostTooHigh “Women’s Lives Matter” was a discussion on October 7, 2014, about the dramatic economic and social impacts of a woman’s death during pregnancy or childbirth, featuring an expert group of panelists. The discussion emphasized strategies for using research findings to advocate for sustained funding and new policy approaches for reproductive and maternal health in the context of post-2015 agenda setting. The panelists were: Dr. Ana Langer…

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July 29, 2014

Briefing Paper: Kosovo’s policies towards Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptians

July 29, 2014 — The FXB Center for Health and Human Rights today published a briefing paper following field work in Kosovo in June 2013. The team investigated the conditions of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians in five communities, identifying the main issues faced by these minority communities, including forced repatriation, access to education and discrimination. The report concludes with recommendations for national and international governments and organizations to respect the rights of…

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July 11, 2014

June Issue of Health and Human Rights Journal is Released

Special Issue on Climate Justice and the Right to Health June 13, 2014 — The FXB Center today released Issue 16.1 of the Health and Human Rights Journal, which has a special theme on climate justice and the right to health. This issue includes an editorial co-written by editor-in-chief Paul Farmer, as well as a foreword to the climate justice section by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Human…

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July 11, 2014

Strengthening Disaster Preparedness in China

In late March, FXB Center Director Jennifer Leaning and FXB Fellow Elizabeth Newnham traveled to China at the invitation of the Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response (CCOUC). Leaning and Newnham joined a group from CCOUC’s Ethnic Minority Health Project to explore issues of disaster preparedness and public health issues in a remote, flood-prone village in southern Sichuan…

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May 6, 2014

Registration is Open for the Global School on Socioeconomic Rights: Course on Health Rights Litigation

Application Deadline is July 1, 2014 The Global School on Socioeconomic Rights: Course on Health Rights Litigation will be held November 3-5, 2014. Applications are due to rcantor@hsph.harvard.edu by July 1, 2014. Read more about the Global School on Socioeconomic Rights: 2014 Course on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Litigation and access the application. The last fifteen years have seen a tremendous growth in the number of health rights…

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February 11, 2014

Commission on Global Governance for Health Publishes Findings in The Lancet

February 11, 2014 — A new Commission from The Lancet and the University of Oslo, of which Jennifer Leaning, FXB Center Director, and Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, are both members, has issued an urgent call for a reform of global decision-making to address health inequalities worldwide. The current global governance system fails to protect the public’s health and the distribution of health risks remains…

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February 4, 2014

Report: Growing Patterns of Violence Against Roma in Hungary Sound Alarms

February 4, 2014 — The FXB Center for Health and Human Rights today released a report documenting “Accelerating Patterns of Anti-Roma Violence in Hungary.” The report is intended to alert the United Nations and the international community to the persistent patterns of violent attacks and actions against the Roma (pejoratively called Gypsies). The report calls upon the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, the Hungarian Government, and the…

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January 28, 2014

Report: In Most Extensive Study to Date, FXB Fellow Documents Widespread Exploitative Labor Practices in India’s Hand-Made Carpet Sector

India’s Hand-Made Carpets Sold in Many Major U.S. Retail Chains January 28, 2014 — Siddharth Kara, Fellow with the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and Adjunct Lecturer on Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, has conducted the largest-ever investigation into slavery and child labor in India’s hand-made carpet sector. The FXB Center today released his report, “Tainted Carpets: Slavery and Child Labor in India’s Hand-Made Carpet Sector”,…

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January 13, 2014

Report: Survival of Syrian Refugee Children in Lebanon

January 13, 2014 – The FXB Center today released a report on the conditions of Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, titled “Running Out Of Time: Survival of Syrian Refugee Children in Lebanon.” The report examines the challenges facing refugees and urges increased funding in advance of this week’s international meeting of donor countries in Kuwait, scheduled to take place on January 15. The authors of the report, Susan Bartels, MD, MPH…

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December 6, 2013

FXB Center Submits UN Report on Child, Early, and Forced Marriages

The FXB Center has submitted a report to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for inclusion in a report on preventing and eliminating child, early, and forced marriage, with a particular focus on challenges, achievements, best practices and implementation gaps. Click here to view the report.

December 6, 2013

Implementing the Technical Guidance

Workshop in Malawi Draws Key Players November 2013 — The Technical Guidance on a Rights-Based Approach to Maternal Mortality and Morbidity, drafted by FXB faculty member Alicia Ely Yamin, was featured at a recent workshop in Malawi organized by various UN agencies as a step in a multi-part project dedicated to developing the tools to operationalize and evaluate implementation of human rights-based approaches (HRBA) to health. The objective of the…

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November 6, 2013

FXB-UNICEF Child Protection Curriculum

For Immediate Release Harvard and UNICEF team up to train global child protection experts BOSTON, November 6, 2013 – On November 6, 2013, faculty from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health will join children’s rights organization UNICEF in a celebration of their new joint child protection curriculum at the School. The partnership will produce one of the first interdisciplinary graduate programs in child protection, which will form a sub-concentration…

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November 6, 2013

Child Abduction Scandal Highlights Roma Stereotypes

Margareta Matache, FXB Fellow and member of the FXB Roma project team, spoke with Al Jazeera America about the recent Roma controversies in Europe. Two Roma families in Ireland and Greece were discovered with blonde, fair-skinned children in their midst — and were promptly separated from the children and investigated for kidnapping. The cases attracted widespread international press, only to have DNA tests reveal that the children were in fact…

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October 11, 2013

International Day of the Girl Child

Innovating for Education October 11, 2013 Across the globe, millions of girls continue to be deprived of an education – a moral imperative and a basic right – due to cultural, financial, and safety barriers. In addition, for young women in many parts of the world, gender-based violence is not only a threat but a part of daily life. Yet there is overwhelming evidence that girls’ empowerment, and specifically education,…

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October 11, 2013

Power of Numbers at the UN

Alicia Ely Yamin Speaks at UN General Assembly Side Event on the Power of Numbers Alicia Ely Yamin, Director of the FXB Center’s Health Rights of Women and Children Program, presented the findings of the Power of Numbers project, conducted in collaboration with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr of the New School for Social Research, at a side event of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2013. The project…

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October 7, 2013

Report: Adolescents, Rights, and Future Opportunities

UNICEF Working Paper Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research for the FXB Center, has authored a report entitled “Adolescents: current rights for future opportunities,” released in conjunction with UNICEF’s Regional Offices for South Asia (ROSA) and East Asia and the Pacific (EAPRO). The report is the second in a working paper series on South-South Cooperation for Child Rights that will help inform the Second High Level Meeting on South-South Cooperation for…

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October 7, 2013

Harvard Chan Forum on Syrian Humanitarian Crisis

Featuring Jennifer Leaning, Director of the FXB Center The Harvard School of Public Health hosted a live Forum event on the Humanitarian Crisis in Syria on Wednesday, October 16, from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm. Jennifer Leaning, FXB Center Director (and Co-Founder of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative), served as an expert participant, joining Paul Spiegel, Deputy Director of the Division of Programme Support and Management at United Nations High Commissioner…

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October 3, 2013

HSPH Forum on Ending Child Mortality

With Jacqueline Bhabha, FXB’s Director of Research, and Elizabeth Gibbons, FXB Senior Fellow Read the GlobalPost’s coverage of the event. The FXB Center’s Director of Research, Jacqueline Bhabha, and Elizabeth Gibbons, a Senior Fellow with the FXB Center, and Former Deputy Director of Policy and Practice and Associate Director of Gender, Rights and Civic Engagement for UNICEF, will participate in this expert panel session at the Harvard School of Public…

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October 1, 2013

Frontiers in Global Health Seminar Series

The True Costs of Maternal Mortality Alicia Ely Yamin, HRWC Program Director, will moderate a seminar on November 6, 2013 from 12:30 to 1:30 pm as part of the Frontiers in Global Health series on “The True Costs of Maternal Mortality on Children and Families: A Discussion of Findings from Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Malawi.” The speakers for the event include the project leaders for the HRWC Impacts of…

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September 20, 2013

Realizing Roma Rights Conference

April 8, 2013 – “Realizing Roma Rights: Addressing Violence, Discrimination and Segregation in Europe,” held on International Roma Day, was the first conference at Harvard University to examine the rights of the Roma, Europe’s largest ethnic minority. In a unique interdisciplinary collaboration, the event was hosted by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights in partnership with the Mahindra Humanities Center and the Center for European Studies at Harvard, and…

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September 20, 2013

Gender Justice, Criminal Law, and Curricular Reforms Conference

Media coverage: Harvard to Launch Gender Justice Bid, Times of India Read Jacqueline Bhabha’s interview with the Harvard Gazette on the death penalty sentences for the four men in the Delhi gang rape case. (July 12-13, 2013) – The Harvard Gender Violence Project, in conjunction with Viswanathan & Co., Advocates, hosted the Gender Justice, Criminal Law, and Curricular Reforms Conference in Delhi, a groundbreaking convening of key stakeholders to examine…

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September 16, 2013

2013 Global School on Socioeconomic Rights

“Be engaged, ask questions, and come with high expectations.” – Course Participant Media Coverage: Harvard Gazette; HSPH News The FXB Center’s Program on the Health Rights of Women and Children (HRWC) hosted the second annual course on health rights litigation from September 16 – 20, 2013, as part of the Global School on Socioeconomic Rights. This one-week intensive course offers participants an opportunity to develop specialist-level knowledge in relation to…

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September 16, 2013

Harvard University Press Assumes Publication of Health and Human Rights Journal

FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University Press Partner on Health and Human Rights: An International Journal Cambridge, Mass. (June 18, 2013)— Harvard University Press (HUP) will assume publication of the influential journal Health and Human Rights beginning with Issue 15.1, now online. Announcing the change today, HUP director William P. Sisler and Jennifer Leaning, who as director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard…

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September 16, 2013

Child and Adolescent Rights Conference in Delhi

Media coverage from the conference: Business Standard; Zeenews.com; One World South Asia; Samachar.com; The Free Press Journal; Bernama FXB Center and Public Health Foundation of India Host Major Conference on Child and Adolescent Rights in India (July 25, 2013) — In the last 20 years, India has made impressive strides toward improving legal, policy, and administrative frameworks aimed at protecting and promoting child and adolescent rights. Significant challenges remain, however,…

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September 16, 2013

PLOS ONE Publishes Data from HRWC Impacts Study

PLOS ONE, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal from the Public Library of Science, has published Costs of Inaction on Maternal Mortality: Qualitative Evidence of the Impacts of Maternal Deaths on Living Children in Tanzania, the first set of data from the Impacts of Maternal Deaths on Living Children Study, conducted by the FXB Center’s Health Rights of Women and Children (HRWC) program. The paper authors are Alicia Ely Yamin, HRWC Program…

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September 11, 2013

FXB Center Overview

The François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights is the first academic center to focus exclusively on the practical dynamic between the issues of health and human rights. Founded in 1993 through a gift from the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud, the FXB Center is a world leader in building a conceptual basis of the right to health and driving advocacy initiatives to incorporate human rights norms into international health…

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September 11, 2013

Human Trafficking

Program Goals The FXB Center launched its Human Trafficking and Forced Labor Program in 2012 with the conviction that more effective and sustainable anti-trafficking strategies are critical to address the scourge of human trafficking worldwide. Under the leadership of Jacqueline Bhabha, FXB Director of Research, the program aims to provide the anti-trafficking community with cutting-edge research, advocacy, and training for the next generation of leaders in the field. Research and…

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September 11, 2013

Empowering Roma Youth

The FXB Center is leading the Reclaiming Adolescence: Roma Transitions to Adulthood initiative, a three-year participatory action research project with Roma and non-Roma youths aged 15 to 25 in Serbia, Romania and Italy. The aim is to address the profound marginalization of the Roma community in Europe by developing and empowering the next generation of Roma youth leaders. This will contribute to an improved understanding of the policies, programs and…

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August 7, 2013

Social Justice and Health1

Program Goals The Social Justice and the Right to Health program, founded and directed by Alicia Ely Yamin, JD, MPH, is informed by the view that the lack of global progress on women’s and children’s health is not principally due to technical obstacles, but rather to entrenched societal barriers and lack of political will at both the national and international levels. Solutions that ignore root causes and underlying inequalities and…

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June 21, 2013

Gender and Adolescent Agency

Over the past two years the François Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University has been researching the factors impinging on educational access for marginalized, Indian adolescent girls, as part of a more general inquiry into agency and empowerment. The goal of the projects is to probe the enduring challenge of female educational disadvantage in India in order to generate an evidence base for enhancing the access of disadvantaged girls to education and to the social, economic and psychological benefits that this education is known to bestow.

June 21, 2013

Jacqueline Bhabha, Alicia Ely Yamin Participate in Harvard Chan Forum on Girls’ Health and Education

June 13, 2013 – Jacqueline Bhabha, FXB Director of Research, and Alicia Ely Yamin, Program Director for the FXB Center’s Health Rights of Women and Children (HRWC) Program, were expert participants in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Forum event on “Girls’ Health and Education: Igniting Change Worldwide.” The event was held in the Forum’s studios in partnership with Vulcan Productions, a founding partner for the 10X10 campaign focused on the new Girl Rising film that follows nine girls…

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