Courtney Schuster
Special Contributor, Blog Entry #1

In a rundown office space in the middle of one of Delhi’s poorest neighborhoods, there is a group of lawyers, activists, and interns slowly trying to change India.  Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) is a NGO using public interest litigation, social activism, and training seminars to redirect Indian laws in an effort to better protect prisoners, the disabled, minorities, women, and children.  They strive to ensure the right to food, the right to health care, and the right to be treated equally before the law.

Currently, 95% of maternal deaths worldwide occur in Asia and in Africa, with India carrying 20% of the global burden.  The vast majority of maternal deaths are preventable and are mostly attributed to causes such as anemia, postpartum hemorrhaging, and unsafe abortions.  The Reproductive Rights Initiative at HRLN is trying to lower the maternal mortality rate by enforcing the government-mandated existence of adequate health facilities.

The accessibility of health care facilities in rural areas is one of the main health care problems in India, especially for those who are in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category.  Many health centers are only open a few hours a day and those that are open are under-equipped and understaffed.  Often times, people are turned away from health centers due to lack of staffing, supplies, and beds.  People either have to hire an expensive private car to take them to another facility or they do not receive medical care at all.  Those who are BPL cannot afford to hire a car so they go without medical care; giving birth at home or going without treatment for illness and disease.  This is a violation of India’s responsibility under state and international law.

The government created the National Rural Health Mission to ensure that those who are BPL receive health care.  It created standards that all public health centers must abide by, including a minimum number of staff must be present at any given time; a minimum number of beds; adequate equipment, tools, and facilities; standards for sanitizing equipment; the presence of unexpired, vital medicines; the administration of family planning services; and blood bank facilities at health centers.

Family planning measures are an important part of government operations in India.  Due to overpopulation, crowding, and strains on resources, the federal government mandates that public health centers offer tubal ligations (tubectomies), contraceptives, counseling, and access to safe abortions.  State governments across India sponsor Sterilization Camps, where women and occasionally men, undergo tubal ligations or vasectomies.  There are instances of women and men undergoing operations without any knowledge or consent of the family planning procedure.  There are cases where the procedure failed and women became pregnant with unwanted children.  There was even a case in which a hospital prescribed and performed hysterectomies on women on 74% of the women that entered the facilities, all without any examination.  HRLN is in the process of bringing all of these instances to the attention of the courts as public interest litigation petitions.

Courtney Schuster is a third-year student at Syracuse University College of Law.  She is currently working as an intern in India for the summer.  She will be contributing personal blog entries throughout her internship, documenting the challenges of solving human rights issues in international settings.  

ICC Office of the Prosecutor Weekly Briefing May 2012 Issue 122