A Public Health Approach to Human Trafficking

Trafficked individuals experience physical, sexual and emotional violence at the hands of traffickers, pimps, employers, among others, and are exposed to various workplace, health and environmental hazards. The breadth of the harm suggests a role for a currently underutilized approach: public health methodologies. The field of public health offers vital skills and expertise in the fight against human trafficking

Beyond the Bedside: A Human Rights Approach to Adolescent Health

In the United States, discussions regarding adolescent health, particularly in the political and legal arenas, frequently focus on one of two issues: abortion and medical decision making. These are important issues that merit considered attention, but there is much more to adolescent health. Many other issues — ranging from violence to substance use to obesity — have a significant impact on the health and well-being of adolescents. This symposium essay aims to shed light on the breadth of health issues confronting adolescents and explore the utility of human rights law in understanding and responding to key health issues confronting adolescents today. Employing a human rights framework, this essay seeks to forge a more holistic understanding of and approach to adolescent health. The essay begins by discussing the range of issues affecting adolescent well-being, focusing in particular on violence, substance use, and obesity. It then briefly addresses the limits of a medical model and related concerns with over-relying on the health care sector to address all adolescent health issues. Access to health care is crucial, but successfully addressing adolescent health issues will require law, policies, and programs that contemplate adolescent well-being beyond health care facilities. This essay then discusses the value of using human rights law as a starting point for developing a comprehensive response to adolescent health issues. Human rights law can facilitate identification of the breadth of issues affecting adolescents while simultaneously providing a legal framework for developing appropriate responses to the various harms that adolescents experience

Mainstreaming Children\u27s Rights in Post-Disaster Settings

In recent years, major natural disasters — ranging from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to the 2010 Haiti earthquake — have challenged the global community to ensure the survival and well-being of millions of individuals under the most difficult circumstances. Each of these natural disasters has created crisis spots with huge numbers of displaced individuals, including many children. The international community has struggled to deliver the resources needed to ensure a prompt and full recovery. In these settings, the challenges confronting children are particularly acute. Yet frequently children are marginalized and underserved by disaster response and reconstruction efforts. This symposium article examines the special circumstances facing children in post-disaster settings and the legal protections in place to ensure their rights and well-being. It seeks to draw attention to the lack of accounting for children’s rights and suggest a framework for overcoming this failure — children’s rights mainstreaming. The article begins by examining prevailing conceptions of children in post-disaster settings. It then reviews the existing legal framework to protect children following a natural disaster. This examination of current law unveils significant gaps in protections for children when they most need assistance: humanitarian law does not apply in the absence of armed conflict; human rights law has important limitations; and international disaster relief law is in a nascent stage. In the final section, this article proposes the mainstreaming of children’s rights in post-disaster relief and reconstruction efforts in order to better ensure the rights and well-being of children and the longterm development of their communities

Physician Encounters with Human Trafficking: Legal Consequences and Ethical Considerations

There is growing recognition and evidence that health care professionals regularly encounter - though they may not identify - victims of human trafficking in a variety of health care settings. Identifying and responding appropriately to trafficking victims or survivors requires not only training in trauma-informed care but also consideration of the legal and ethical issues that arise when serving this vulnerable population. This essay examines three areas of law that are relevant to this case scenario: criminal law, with a focus on conspiracy; service provider regulations, with a focus on mandatory reporting laws; and human rights law. In addition to imposing a legal mandate, the law can inform ethical considerations about how health care professionals should respond to human trafficking. The viewpoints expressed in the AMA Journal of Ethics are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA

Toward Healing and Restoration for All: Reframing Medical Malpractice Reform

The medical malpractice liability system is blamed for everything from the high cost of health care to quality assurance issues. This Article suggests that that one of the problems with the current approach to medical malpractice is that legal remedies for medical error are not viewed as part of the continuum of care. Thus, a new model - driven by the principle of care and the goal of healing - is needed to address medical errors more effectively. Building from these core principles of care and healing, the author develops a new healing-centered framework which provides a better assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the current medical malpractice liability system and existing alternative schemes. Evaluating existing options using this new framework, we find that each of the current models falls short in certain ways. The author then turns to restorative justice for guidance in fashioning an alternative system for addressing medical error that meets the objectives of the healing-centered framework. Building on restorative justice principles, the author proposes a restorative medical error resolution scheme aimed at providing healing for patients, health care providers and the community

Birth Registration: An Essential First Step Toward Ensuring the Rights of All Children

Birth registration, the official recording of a child\u27s birth by a government agency, is one of the most important events in a child\u27s life. Birth registration establishes the existence of the child under law and provides the foundation for ensuring many of the child\u27s rights. Although birth registration alone does not guarantee that a child will have access to adequate health care, receive an education, or be free from abuse or exploitation, its absence leaves a child at greater risk of a range of human rights violations. Despite the importance of birth registration, according to UNICEF, approximately 50 million newborn babies are not registered each year, accounting for over 40 percent of the children born annually. This short article examines the right to birth registration and the implications of birth registration for the child\u27s civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights