sexual health and human rights in the african region - The ICHRP

physical and mental health’. 708 The African Children’s Charter guarantees the
right to health to children along substantively similar terms as the African
Charter, albeit, with some of the state obligations spelt out more elaborately,
including the need to develop and implement primary health care services that
are accessible to all children. 709 Though, as yet, no cases that directly impact on
access to health services related to sex and sexuality have emanated from the
treaty bodies of the African Charter, it is important to note that in two
communications, 710 the African Commission has embraced an expansive
approach to the right to health akin to the approach that has been adopted by the
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
[4] In Purohit and Another v The Gambia the Commission said:
Enjoyment of the human right to health as it is widely known is vital to all aspects of a person’s
life and well-being, and is crucial to the realisation of all other fundamental human rights and
freedoms. The right includes the right to health facilities, access to goods and services to be
guaranteed without discrimination of any kind. 711
In language reminiscent of that employed by the Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights when interpreting the right to health, 712 the African
Commission said that regardless of domestic economic constraints, it would
‘read into article 16 the obligation on part of states party to the African Charter to
take concrete and targeted steps, while taking full advantage of available
resources, to ensure that the right to health is fully realised in all aspects without
discrimination of any kind’. 713
[5] In Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and Another v Nigeria 714 , the
African Commission found that, among other human rights violations,
exploitation of oil by a partly owned oil company without regard to the adverse
environmental health constituted breaches of the right to health and the right to a
healthy environment guaranteed by articles 16 and 24 respectively of the African
Charter. In reaching its conclusion, the African Commission drew, in part, from
the expansive interpretation of socio-economic rights under the Covenant on
708 Article 16(1) of the African Charter.
709 Article 14 of the African Children’s Charter.
710 Purohit and Another v The Gambia (2003) AHRLR 96 (ACHPR 2003). Social and Economic Rights Action
Centre (SERAC) and Another v Nigeria (2001) ACHLR 60 (15 TH Annual Activity Report) (SERAC case).
These cases were introduced in Chapter 1 of this study.
711 Purohit and Another v The Gambia para 80.
712 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights General Comment 14: The Rights to the Highest
Attainable Standard of Health E/C.12.2000/4 (2000), para 30;
713 Ibid para 84.
714 SERAC case.
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