EKS
Ground-breaking victory in case of maternal death
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) released a ground breaking decision
in case of a maternal death. It declares that governments have a human rights obligation to guarantee that all pregnant
women in their countries—regardless of income or racial background—have access to timely, non-discriminatory, and appropriate
maternal health services.
Louisa Cabal, director of the Centre for reproductive rights based in New York, who was leading the case, shares the whole story:
"You may remember that this case revolves around the death of Alyne da Silva Pimentel, a 28-year-old Afro-Brazilian woman who suffered from a high-risk pregnancy and was repeatedly denied timely care at public health facilities. As a result, Alyne died following delivery of a stillbirth, leaving behind her 5-year-old daughter. While Brazil has significantly lowered its maternal mortality ratio over the last decade, the government has not done enough to save the lives of pregnant poor, rural, and Afro-Brazilian women such as Alyne, who are disproportionately affected by maternal mortality.
Alyne’s story is one of thousands in Brazil, and all around the world, in which women are denied basic quality medical care to address common pregnancy complications. When we first suggested, more than 10 years ago, using litigation to fight the maternal mortality and morbidity crisis, we were met with skepticism: the loss of women’s lives and health to pregnancy and childbirth was still seen as strictly a public health problem, one that governments would willingly solve with time. We, however, had reason to doubt this claim. The stories we heard in every corner of the globe—of poor pregnant women being turned away by hospitals or left alone for hours while in labor, of governments neglecting maternal healthcare—spoke to a lack of political will and a pervasive disregard for women’s lives. It was clear that governments needed to be held accountable to their obligation to protect the health and lives of all women.
The Center was willing to challenge conventional wisdom and push the conversation forward. The Alyne case was one part of a multi-pronged strategy we developed to build a global legal framework that recognizes the right to maternal health care as a fundamental right. In recent years, we also documented the human rights violations that fuel maternal deaths in Nigeria, supported a high impact litigation strategy in India taking state governments to task for failing to implement maternal health policies, and successfully lobbied for two historic resolutions from the UN Human Rights Council that recognize maternal mortality as a grave human rights concern.
Needless to say, the CEDAW Committee’s decision is a groundbreaking one that will benefit women worldwide, as well as provide a powerful tool for maternal health advocates and set a precedent for national courts and regional human rights bodies. It sends a strong message to Brazil and to countries around the world that access to quality maternal health care services is a fundamental right, and that governments should be held responsible if they fail to act to protect this right. Even when governments outsource health services to private institutions, the committee found, they remain directly responsible for their actions and have a duty to regulate and monitor said institutions.
Specifically, the committee ordered Brazil to:
· Compensate Alyne’s family, including her mother and daughter;
· Ensure women’s right to safe motherhood and affordable access to adequate emergency obstetric care;
· Provide adequate professional training for health workers;
· Ensure that private health care facilities comply with national and international standards on reproductive health care;
and
· Ensure that sanctions are imposed on health professionals who violate women’s reproductive health rights.
Since filing the case, we have worked extensively in Brazil to build a broad coalition of women’s rights and human rights advocates, public health experts, and journalists that could draw public attention to the issue of maternal mortality and press the government into taking action. We will now work with these groups, as well as the government, to ensure that the decision is fully implemented and that Brazil starts addressing the stark social, economic and racial disparities that deny women access to basic health care services. We will also disseminate the decision widely to advocates, lawyers, policymakers, and courts worldwide to make sure its impact is felt beyond Brazil’s borders."
