Human rights must always be protected

The fourth episode of the University of Johannesburg’s weekly webinar series was themed around inequality post the Covid-19 pandemic.

This week the panel discussed that whether or not people were rich or poor, the human rights of all must be prioritised and protected by all costs. Among the panel was director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at UJ, Professor Steven Friedman, UJ executive dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor Letlhokwa Mpedi, and the United Kingdom’s senior lecturer in Global Health and Philosophy at the King’s College Global Health Institute, Professor Sridhar Venkatapuram.

Friedman led the conversation and decided to take it on from the human rights-based approach as people would be face extraordinary challenges as life continued post Covid-19. The professor stated that if people chose to protect themselves from the virus, they shouldn’t face consequences that were out of their hands.

He explained, “What strikes me is the palpable fear which people in the townships and informal settlements [feel] in getting into [minibus] taxis. If they don’t get in the taxis, they will lose their jobs.”When it comes to how the State had been creating and enforcing policies around Covid-19, Mpedi said, “All I ask is for a rational approach with balance and without unnecessary discrepancies between sectors. Currently all I see is a haphazard approach that is troubling and at the same time people’s livelihoods are affected.”

Striking the balance in guaranteeing human rights would be the difficult task for policymakers going forward, suggested Mpedi. According to Venkatapuram, there was a need for global health public ethics as he had noticed an absolute lack of declaration of ethics in the way the policies were implemented worldwide.

He explained, “Since the government policies are lacking the imagination of stating the primary unit of our concern, is it a sector or is it a person? South Africa is a profoundly important model for this because it has a history were laws did not acknowledge certain kinds of people, so we need to re-imagine different kinds of social and economic groups.” Unfortunately, when it came to health policy, it had always been a political endeavour. added Venkatapuram.

He stated, “It’s never been medical or scientific. The way international relations works is a reflection of domestic politics. We need to focus on our empathy across all countries. We can see that even the richest countries are doing the worst.”