The Right to Health

To raise awareness of health as a human right, the World Health Organization has launched The Right to Health, a colorful, interactive cartoon booklet. The goal of the booklet is to reach out particularly to adolescents and children and demystify the right to health. It is just one of several tools WHO is using to raise awareness of the right to health among young people, but also among health practitioners and government officials. The cartoon's story takes place in a classroom where a teacher interacts with children from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe emphasizing the universality of human rights. They talk about children's rights, women's rights, discrimination, freedom to make personal life choices, and the right to healthy living conditions and education. They also discuss access to affordable health services, how governments must strive to increase their ability to promote and protect the right to health and the responsibility of rich countries to help poor countries in making this right a reality. The cartoon illustrates how a lack of awareness of health-related human rights can contribute to poor treatment of individuals by peers and health professionals in the context of mental health problems and HIV infection.Nygren-Krug, Helena is the author of 'The Right to Health', published 2002 under ISBN 9789241590280 and ISBN 9241590289.