Population and human rights

Motherhood and reproduction have been at the core of feminist discourses about women's rights ever since its onset. For the first and second feminist movements, the right to abortion and the public recognition of motherhood have been main issues in reproduction discourses. Since the last two decades of the 20th century, the potentials of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have opened up new venues of feminist discourse.
In this paper we sketch the main feminist lines of argumentation regarding motherhood and assisted reproduction since the 1970s, and we identify specific shifts in their recurrent issues. An essential contribution of feminism to the understanding of motherhood has been its insistence on the distinction between biological and social motherhood. ART has further decomposed biological motherhood and has altered the meaning of motherhood and reproduction. It has also shifted the focus from “quantum” (the number of children) to “timing” (when to have the wanted number of children). Despite the rhetoric of choice surrounding ART, it has not increased women’s reproductive freedom. The decomposition of biological motherhood, the medical, legal, and commercial development of reproduction, and the change in the social perception of motherhood have rather established new forms of control over female reproduction.

It is quite natural to see minorities where people are gathered to live. North Korea is no exception. Nevertheless, the North Korean government emphasizes that in North Korea where there is “nothing to envy in the world”, no one is discriminated unless one is “an enemy who cannot live under the sky (heaven)”. But is it?
This paper aims to classify the types of minorities within North Korea and look at their living conditions. The basic materials used in proceeding the research are interviews of the North Korean defectors since September 2010 to the present and publication materials issued by the North Korean government.
There are various types of minorities in North Korea. But this article is going to review some major types of minorties in North Korea and how they are make their everyday lives. Those types are as follows: Persons with no value, those disabled, Repatriated Korean residents from Japan and the outsiders.
By reviewing the types of minorities and their living conditions there, this article aims to understand the internal structure of social class within North Korea.

The objective of this study to investigate the role of various sectors in the local level to performance vulnerable and marginalized groups including to study an appropriate strengthening policy and mechanism to protection and advocacy for the vulnerable and marginalized groups to prepare for these changing patterns in ASEAN Communities. Methodologies employed in this study are documentary research study and Qualitative study. Data was collected from the population involved in the welfare protection of the rights related to working of the vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Justice, Private Sectors, Non-Government Sectors, Community leaders including vulnerable and marginalized groups. Number of samples in total is 500 persons.
The result also point out that Local Government would like to integrate capacity of government agencies, institutions and civil society to carry out social budgeting exercises aimed at improving financial sustainability of social services in support of policy goals of broadening coverage and raising benefit levels (health insurance, pensions, access to quality education, health care and other social services) includes on the principles of the sufficiency economy.

The Unique Identification (UID) programme was launched at a time when India was struggling to manage its vastly-distributed public welfare schemes. It will be the first scheme which will provide each and every citizen a proof of identity regardless of his or her socio-economic profile and the only scheme to provide the same proof of identity without any pre-requisite documents of identity or address. Most importantly, the programme is unique in its quasi-mandate and inclusion of biometrics.

The paper explores the important concerns about inclusion of bio-metrics in service delivery and the vision of the implementing authority of the Unique Identification system being implemented in India with a human rights prespective. It also aims to find out people’s perception of inclusion of biometrics and their motivations behind enrolment for the UID.

A mix method approach was adopted. It included in-depth interviews with key informants and quantitative KAP surveys with people who came for enrollment.

The findings of the study reveal the government's vision of UID in public service delivery and main challenges that it faces. The paper also finds out the public perception of and expectation from UID and rationale behind people's justification of biometrics.

The understanding of education as a human right is a prerogative incipient. As internationally it grows from the recognition of social rights as human rights and follows the ways of international treaties and pacts, its consolidation depends on the political movement of social acceptance of its ethical principles, the state commitment to their promotion and sharing with initiatives diagnostic and monitoring wider dissemination of his defense. This paper aims to present and reflect on the process of consulting PNUD for the development of indicators system of education, with a focus on human rights that comprise the construction of a National System of Indicators for Human Rights in Brazil.

Many studies conducted in western developed countries have elucidated that racial discrimination is a significant factor for racial minorities’ health outcomes. However, no research addressed the relationship between perceived discrimination of racial minority groups and health despite the growing influx of migrants in South Korea. Drastic transition toward multicultural society in requires researchers to explore the relationship in Korean context. This study aims to consider the relationship between immigrant workers’ perceived discrimination and depression. The data were collected from a self-administered survey with the questionnaire that consists of 46 questions asking perceived discrimination, depression, health behaviors, and socio-economic status. We found that perceived discrimination experience is significantly related to worsen mental health conducting multiple logistic regression analysis.

Female sex workers are one of the most vulnerable groups who face challenges in their day to day life with the clients, police, pimps and their counterparts. The nature of profession leaves them alone in this world to face the critical health, HIV/AIDS, Psychological & social discrimination at various stages of life.

SAKSHAM GS project of CARE India was initiated in 2009 in Andhra Pradesh under AVAHAN Initiatives to mobilize female sex workers by using community to community learning intervention strategy with an aim to reduce their vulnerabilities through collectivization.

With the efforts 22633 FSWs have become the members of 22 community based organizations. Approximately 1154 Hot Spot leaders are democratically selected to deal with the crisis situations. In a state level get together for FSW a message is given to the society that they are also human being entitle to get human rights. The efforts empower them to form a state level network and provided toll free number for easy accessibility of community members. The empowered community members are not only leading their life with choice but also saving the lives of many girls/women from trafficking.

South Korea's total fertility rate (TFR) in 2009 was 1.15, the lowest in the world (as known so far. The South Korean government has invested a total of 19.7 trillion won (US$ 18 billion) of public funds from 2006 to 2010 to deal with the problem. This paper aims to analyze the “National Supporting Program for Infertility Couples” (hereinafter the “Program”), started in 2006 as one of the measures taken by the South Korean government to deal with low fertility in Korea. Specifically, this study is to clarify the following research questions:
First, did the “Program” start with a comprehensive consideration for women's health? Or rather, has the “Program” caused the concept of women's health to change or deteriorate?
Second, can the “Program” be an effective measure to deal with low fertility? And does this “Program” not cause internal contradictions with other low fertility policies?
Third, does the “Program” live up to its name and actually really help infertile couples?
This study attempts to answer these questions by analyzing the documents published by government regarding the "Program" and low fertility. In addition, it will analyze how national policy deals with women's health in conjunction with the amendments of the “Maternal and Child Health Act”, and previous analysis on the “Maternal and Child Health Service”.

Changes in population dynamics presents new challenges in healthcare of the Latin American population. The region's countries have implemented various policies to improve public health outcomes, especially primary care, lower infant mortality and causes of maternal mortality and largely preventable diseases. In addition to efforts to achieve this, we found several factors associated to political activity, that is, the implementation of programs that can easily translate into visible results and citizen satisfaction with government actions. These efforts to maintain the equilibrium in social cohesion have, in some Countries of Latin America, interesting paradoxes in terms of the expected effects on the results. This essay addresses some of the factors that affect infant and maternal mortality in the region, through principal components and cluster analysis, as well as some aspects related to the perception of the population health services. We developed an index of availability of services and risk factors for health. Also, we make a comparison with the ranking made by PAHO which discusses some of the advances in health policies based on access and other variables that allow us to get closer to understanding the fundamental social factors of health.

The present study investigates the mental health needs of refugee women who survived politically motivated torture and identified barriers to professional counseling services in a community located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. This community-based pilot study (N = 20) adopted both quantitative and qualitative research components to enhance the validity and coherence of the information generated. The results showed that the torture survivors currently experienced clinically significant symptoms of anxiety, depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) based on the DSM-IV criteria. In addition, the torture survivors identified (a) lasting and harmful effects of torture on their daily lives, (b) socio-economic-cultural barriers to mental health services, and (c) detrimental effects of torture on family relationships. The alternative treatment approach was further discussed of the recommendations for practice and policy.