Maila Mukti Yatra- “Hope of Eradication of Inhuman Slavery from the Nation”

The Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan initiated a march “Maila Mukti Yatra” (National Peoples March for Total Eradication of Manual Scavenging) beginning from Bhopal on November 30, 2012 and culminated in New Delhi on 31st January 2013 with the resolution -“The slavery of manual scavenging is against dignity,humanity and human rights. We will eradicate this slavery anyhow.” Covering over 10,000 kilometres through 200 districts of 18 states The March successfully mobilized 50,000 manual scavengers to stop the practice.

In the concluding ceremony held in New Delhi, thousands of Dalit women who had stopped working as manual scavengers took a firm decision to bring an end to this practice. Ministers from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Women and Child Development and a representative from the Planning Commission of India expressed their commitment towards passing a new legislation and announced several provisions for rehabilitation at the ceremony. Country representatives of the UNFPA, ILO, and the United Nations also committed to work towards eradicating the practice of manual scavenging.

The event was also successful in bringing together chairpersons of the National Commission for Safai Karmcharis and the Dalit India Chamber of Commerce and Industries who stressed on the importance of rehabilitation and skill development to enable manual scavengers undertake alternate sources of employment.

Civil society showed strong support to the cause by ensuring their presence in large numbers at the event. Representatives from the Association for Voluntary Action, Dalit Alliance, Andhra Pradesh; Jai Bharat, Andhra Pradesh; Navsarjan Trust, Gujarat; Ahil Bharti Safai Majdur Sangh, Jharkhand and NAMHHR expressed their solidarity. Former member of the National Advisory Council, Mr. Harsh Mander, said “No human is born to perform the act of scavenging and getting forced to adopt it as a profession. Women associated with the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan have shown the courage of changing this complex social system, and this courage will activate the process of social transformation.”

Global Maternal Health Conference 2013

Improving Quality of Care

The past 25 years of the safe motherhood movement has seen extraordinary successes - notably a 33% reduction in maternal mortality from 409,053 in 1990 to 273,465 in 2011. However as 2015 draws closer and it is clear that many countries will be unable to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the question that is being raised is how will the gains of the past be protected and how can unfinished business be addressed? As a contribution to the process of redefining human development for women after 2015, the Maternal Health Task Force held a conference in Arusha on improving the quality of maternal health care.

Co-organized by Management and Development for Health, and sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, UNICEF, and UNFPA the Global Maternal Health Conference brought together over 800 experts in maternal health in Arusha, Tanzania. The three day conference (15-17th Jan 2013) was marked with rich discussion and a sharing of the latest evidence on improving the quality of care for women during pregnancy and childbirth.

NAMHHR convener was invited by WHO to present in a session entitled “Maternal death surveillance and response for better quality of maternal health care”. Drawing on the learnings from our National Advocacy Seminar on maternal death reviews “Chronicles of Deaths Foretold”. Jashodhara highlighted the role of civil society organizations in maternal death review. She mentioned that civil society organizations (CSO) in India were complimenting the government’s efforts by incorporating additional perspectives to maternal death reviews (MDRs) related to social determinants of health, non-obstetric causes of death, entitlements, continuum of care, discrimination/denial . The analysis by CSO differed from that done by the government, in that it is done within a framework of rights and accountability rather than a technical largely bio-medical investigation. She also mentioned that CSOs have the advantage of being able to obtain information from community members in a more non-threatening manner that a government representative. Further in the context of South Asian countries where maternal mortality was high, especially among most vulnerable socio-economic groups, a few crucial questions pertained to who does the MDR (government representative/CSO), why it is undertaking (fault finding/fact finding), what is investigated (only bio-medical causes of death vs health system lapses and socio economic factors), who gives data (providers/women’s family), how is the data processed (all deaths reviewed/sample of deaths in selected sites aimed at promoting learning) and how is the analysis used (is it made public and feed back for system improvement and promoting accountability). Jashodhara mentioned that in India CSOs were in dialogue with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to ensure their representation on state committees. CSOs were also pushing for accountability by addressing parliamentarians and National Human Rights Commission on this. 

To know more about it,please visit-   http://www.gmhc2013.com/

Food: A matter of Justice

NAMHHR works in solidarity with the demands of the Right to Food (RTF) Campaign, for not only food security for all women but also on maternal nutrition and maternity benefits. 

A major Dharna on the National Food Security Act was organized by the RTF Campaign from 13th-15th Dec 2012 at Jantar Mantar, Delhi. Hundreds of women, men and children assembled at Jantar Mantar for three days (on 13-15 Dec), from 11 different states, to reassert demands for a comprehensive National Food Security Act. People from various human rights groups, worker’s organizations, women's organizations and progressive political parties supported the Dharna. NAMHHR members, SAHAYOG and Action India also participated actively in the Dharna. 

The three day dharna covered several issues over the three days such as hardships of poor households excluded from the PDS and opposition to cash transfers women’s and children’s right to food, and ended with a strong demand for the comprehensive Food Security Bill that could ensure universal provision of balanced nutrition and adequate diet for all especially the poor and vulnerable. 

Issues related to women including undernutrition, pregnancy and lactation, maternal entitlements, lack of adequate support for child care, issues of single women. Issues of minimum wage, employment (including NREGA), agriculture, homelessness, migrant workers were discussed. 

Jashodhara (representing NAMHHR) spoke on maternal nutrition and the need for universal unconditional Maternity Entitlements. She called upon the men and women present to ensure that equal rights to food began from the household, so that women were able to eat together with men and children, and eat as much as could be shared in the family. Jashodhara also pointed out that maternity was a time of greater expenses and lowered incomes in poor households, therefore the government must ensure universal maternity benefits without any preconditions to all women, regardless of how many children they had. 

National Convention on Union Budget 2013-14

A National Convention on Union Budget 2013-14 was organised by People’s Budget Initiative, (whose Secretariat is with CBGA) on December 5 and 6, 2012 in New Delhi.

People’s Budget Initiative (PBI) is a coalition of civil society organisations from across the country which works towards seeking space for people’s voices in the budget making process in India. PBI has been organising National Conventions on Union Budget every year since 2006, in which representatives of civil society organisations from across the country articulate their expectations from the forthcoming Union Budget. Since last year, this effort has been strengthened with the additional process of Regional Conventions on the Union Budget across five regions in the country, i.e. north and central, south, east, west and north east.

The expectations and demands shared in these Conventions are subsequently presented as a Charter of Demands which is shared with the Union Ministry of Finance,Union Ministries that deal with social sectors and disadvantaged sections of population and a number of other key stakeholders. NAMHHR drafted recommendations for the health section drawn from the NAMHHR study findings of the IGMSY scheme.

Ms. Aditi Sood attended the convention on behalf of NAMHHR.

National Consultation - From the Field to the Judge's Bench

NAMHHR member, Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) organized a two day national consultation, "From the Field to the Judge's Bench: Developing Litigation Strategies to Improve the Lives of Women," in Delhi on November 24 - 25, 2012. 

The consultation focused on Reproductive Rights and the law in India. The consultation was organized to understand and explore areas for new litigation across a broad spectrum of reproductive rights issues.The consultation helped participants to learn how to use the litigation to promote issues including bringing comprehensive sexual health education into the classroom, ensuring people's access to contraception, and securing the implementation of national entitlement schemes. 

NAMHHR member, Ms.Jashodhara Dasgupta was on a panel and spoke on the issue of accountability in health. Members of Secretariat Ms.YK Sandhya and Ms. Aditi Sood also attended the consultation.

Please find below the presentation made at the consultation on how to file a PIL and use litigation as a means of advocating for your cause. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/119251370/How-to-File-a-PIL

Capacity Building Workshop on Maternal Death Review

NAMHHR organized a capacity building workshop on Maternal Death Review in collaboration with Commonhealth in New Delhi from 10^th-14^th Oct. The workshop was organized as NAMHHR recognizes the importance of conducting Maternal Death Reviews as a step towards system strengthening and correction that will contribute to a reduction in maternal deaths.  

The objective of the workshop was to enable civil society to build their capacities to use the comprehensive and strengthen MDR tool focusing on medical, social and legal aspects. The MRD tool used for this workshop was designed in a way that captures social determinants which are a major cause of these maternal deaths.  Dr. T.K. Sundari Ravindran, Dr. Subha Sri,  Ad. Anubha Rastogi and Ms. Jashodhara Dasgupta facilitated the workshop. 28 participants from states of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh participated in it.

NAMHHR hopes to contribute further by using the MDRs to promote accountability and health system improvements through supporting civil society capacities to conduct surveillance of maternal deaths, use the MDR tool and analyze the findings.

Chronicles of Deaths Foretold

NAMHHR organised an Advocacy Seminar titled- CHRONICLES OF DEATHS FORETOLD- Using Maternal Death Reviews to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity in India, 9th October 2012 in New Delhi where civil society activists from 12 states came together on a common platform to have a dialogue with the government and technical experts. The Dialogue brought together senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, technical agencies like WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and donors. 

Civil society members from 8 states across India who have been documenting maternal deaths and studying the causes presented their findings in the seminar. The documentation of maternal deaths in these states raised important questions relevant to the prevention of maternal mortality and morbidity in India. Health activists also presented their recommendations to representatives from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, calling for greater attention to home births to make them safer; greater monitoring of the Continuum of Care instead of only JSY; and a systematic process of conducting Maternal Death Review in all states, with a publishing of what learning has been gained from these reviews.

In response to the presentations and recommendations, Dr. Manisha Malhotra, Deputy Commissioner Maternal Health, GOI Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, chair of the session, shared that “ the time had come for civil society and the government to work together to promote quality maternal health services in the country.” She sought civil society collaboration to conduct Maternal Death Reviews in the community to track those incidents that fail to get recorded officially. The event received favourable coverage in the media. 

Please click to read more: http://www.thehindu.com/health/institutional-deathbeds/article3988166.ece?css=print