Introduction to IACHR Hearing
Monika Kalra Varma
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights
March 3, 2006
On behalf of Zanmi Lasante/Partners in Health, the New York University School of Law, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, I would like to thank you for granting us this hearing and for the opportunity to address you today.
My name is Monika Kalra Varma and I am the Program Director at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. We have been working in partnership with Ms. Loune Viaud and her organization, Zanmi Lasante since she received our human rights award in 2002. Her social change goal, which has since become our social change goal, is to realize the right to health for all Haitians.
We are here today because we believe the Commission has a critical rile to play in Haiti. Today we will demonstrate the economic and social rights violations occurring against the Haitian people. We will argue that the OAS Member States have human rights obligations in Haiti which are currently being violated. Finally, we will ask the Commission to take an active role in articulating those obligations and ensuring that they are met.
Haiti is a country where there are only 2.5 doctors per 100,000 people. Dying in childbirth is the second highest cause of death for women. Nearly half of the entire population of Haiti is undernourished and the average life expectancy for a Haitian is 52. In the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean the average life expectancy is 20 years greater.
Ms. Loune Viaud, Director of Strategic Planning and Operations for Zanmi Lasante will testify about the gross economic and social rights violations she sees every day. Zanmi Lasante is one of the largest NGOs in Haiti and the largest in the Central Plateau of Haiti. Zanmi Lasante has seen over one million patients in the last year alone. She will alsio discuss her own experiences with the UN Stabilization Mission to Haiti, known as MINUSTAH.
Ms. Viaud will submit a report on behalf of her organization which was prepared with Dr. Paul Farmer who is the Medical Director of Zanmi Lasante. Unfortunately, Dr. Farmer could not be here today to testify. The report provides further information about the health situation in Haiti and the Central Plateau. It also highlights the link between the instability in Haiti and the violations of economic and social rights. This report along with all other materials referenced in the testimonies today, can you be found in our written submissions to the Commission.
Although we recognize the Haitian government’s obligations to realize its citizens’ rights, today we will focus on the human rights obligations of OAS Member States.
Professor Margaret Satterthwaite, Director of the NYU School of Law’s Human Rights Clinic will articulate why the Commission should actively engage in asserting its Member States’ human rights obligations. She will present a legal brief which articulates the concrete and specific obligations of Member States who act bilaterally or multilaterally as well as those States that have contributed troops to MINUSTAH.
Finally, we will hear from Mr. Todd Howland, Director of the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights. He will draw upon his experiences working for the UN in Rwanda and Angola to discuss how OAS Members can measurably improving the human rights situation in Haiti and thereby fulfill their own obligations.
OAS Member States include some of the international leaders in fulfilling the economic and social rights of its own people. In fact UNDP has singled out specific OAS Member States as examples of countries fulfilling their Millennium Development Goals. We are here today because those very same leaders, who are participating in and helping to lead MINUSTAH are not using their expertise to measurably improve Haitians’ economic and social rights.
We believe that active engagement by the Commission will help to remedy this situation. We are therefore respectfully requesting that the Commission take the following actions:
- Conduct an onsite visit to Haiti, with all Members of the Commission, to examine the economic and social rights situation in Haiti.
- Request an Advisory Opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Member States’ economic and social rights obligations when acting internationally
- Request the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Economic and Social Rights
I’d like to thank the Commission again for this opportunity and would now like to introduce Ms. Loune Viaud.