UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OHCHR/Special Procedures - Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on Health

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us at this press conference.

Our speaker today is Doctor Thalang Mufukang, the Special Rapporteur on the right to health.

She will brief you today on her latest report to the Human Rights Council.

We will begin with opening remarks by the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros, followed by a short statement from the Special Rapporteur before moving to questions.

Now we will listen to the video of message from Doctor Tetris.

A special rapporteur on the right to health, Doctor Thaling Mofocking, distinguished guests, Dear colleagues and friends.

I thank Doctor Mofocking for her report on health and care workers.

As defenders of the right to health, health and care workers are the backbone of WHS mission to achieve health for all.

As providers of essential services and 1st responders in emergencies, they face enormous pressures including shortages, challenging environments, even unsafe working conditions and physical risks.

And yet, day after day, they deliver life saving care, protect the well-being and dignity of patients, and serve as powerful advocates for safe and high quality health systems.

As Doctor **** King's report showed, health and care workers play a critical role as defenders of the rights of both patients and workers themselves.

It's important to note that health and care workers are predominantly women and often migrants.

Last month, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to accelerate action on safe and decent working conditions for all health and care workers.

The resolution prioritised protecting them from abuse, attacks, discrimination and sexual misconduct, especially in emergencies and conflicts.

My thanks again to Doctor Moffo King and to all of you for your shared commitment to care for those who care for us.

[Other language spoken]

Now we will hear a few words from the Special Rapporteur, Dr Mofokang, you have the floor.

The special Rapporteur on the right to help.

Thank you very much, colleagues, for joining me this afternoon.

And a special thank you to Doctor Tedros, the DG of The Who.

My name is Doctor Kalimufuking, a medical doctor still in clinical practise, and I welcome this opportunity to address all of you in my capacity as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

And this comes of course as I presented my 5th thematic report to the Human Rights Council, which focuses on health and care workers as defenders of the right to health.

There is an urgent need for a paradigm shift to reimagine health systems everywhere in the world that are sustainable but also equitable and provide for dignified and compassionate ways in which humans, the critical health and care workers crucial for the functioning of health systems, are valued and cared for.

There must be a strengthening and protections for migrant healthcare workers specifically, including fairly about contracts and recognition of foreign credential and transparent pathways to transition to stable forms of legal status.

As we know, the global migration shift includes this very important health and work for workforce, and so there must be a way in which we think about long term residences or citizenship that reduce their precarity and vulnerability to exploitation.

Many of these are women and people of African descent and indigenous peoples, and so the issue is both racialized and a gendered one.

It's also important when thinking about health and care workers to eliminate barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services.

Issues related to confidentiality and conscientious objection are crucial in how, in the one instance they can limit what health and care workers are able to do.

And so it's always my call to revise legal and regulative frameworks to ensure the full decriminalisation of abortion and ensure that there's no barrier both from a patient access and also from a health and care worker provision side.

And there must be a way that we can explore ethical and rights based bilateral agreements for migrant health and care workers, but also those workers who work in a national context, ensuring that working conditions and career advancement opportunities exist for them.

And at the same time, we must ensure that we do not continue to deplete the workforce of those who are in the low income middle countries.

It is important when it comes to medical undergraduate training and specialist programmes as well that the medical pedagogy and curriculum must be updated to a human rights based approach which embodies important characteristics and ethical practises that empower both providers as well as patients.

Medical regulatory bodies globally, regionally and nationally must be able to voice out and speak out against violations of both workers but also the populations which they took an oath to serve.

When it comes to health and care workers, their health and well-being, their right to healthy working and occupational environments are important in the creation of equal opportunity to the to realise the high sustainable standard of physical and mental health.

And yet, in many places around the world, this opportunity to create equal opportunity to realise the right to health is obliterated.

In the context of protracted war, violence and genocide around the world, the war on Gaza has been a war on the right to health and underlying determinants of health from the very beginning.

Despite the IC JS declaration of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territory is illegal, they continue to bombard Gaza and the West Bank as the world watches as snipers shoot dead children and the starving population day after day while trying to get food aid.

When human rights are treated like an allocate menu by member States and not what they truly are, which is indivisible, foundational and unconditional, and of course they're an important language of obligation and accountability, we move fast into dystopia.

I also want to bring into the fore the multiple and complex global shocks and protracted injustice and war that continue to affect the people of Congo and Sudan, Haiti and Mainma, Syria, Yemen and all of the oppressed people everywhere.

I continue to honour all of those victims, recent and past, including health and care workers, and we must prioritise the respect for international law and human rights without discrimination and double standards.

And so it is important in this moment in time to call for an immediate provision of life saving humanitarian assistance and aid to all affected people and for such access to be guaranteed by the international community.

In closing, I just want to_that there must be a release of all health and care workers who have been detained harassed, tortured, and killed everywhere around the world and an immediate stopping of targeting of these health and care workers there.

Are the defenders of the right to Health and Human rights defenders in their own right and the council Has entrusted me with the responsibility to witness and report any violations on the right to health and.

Over the course of my mandate, I BEAR witness to the reality that in many parts of the world, this realisation of the right to health is even harder to reach for many people.

We are all sick from multiple and intersecting forms of violence and collectively, as a world, now more than ever, we need strong and decisive leadership to end all suffering.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

The Special Rapporteur will now take questions.

Please state your name and organisation before asking a question.

If there are no questions in the room, we'll take the questions online.

Please raise your hand online if you have a question.

We'll give the floor back to the Special Rapporteur for closing remarks.

So in closing, I just want to wrap up and say that it has been a privilege, and this of course be my penultimate address to the Human Rights Council, that the right to health to be realised.

We must respect not just the, of course, important element of accessing health facilities, but also underlying determinants of health.

But also be honest in the historical reason that many of the Member States are unable to realise the right to health.

And it is important in this context of today, but also historical and I suppose a warning for the future as well.

In order for us to to succeed as a human rights community, we must end all forms of violence.

Interpersonal violence is well understood, but we must also end colonial imperialist violence and that must remain the ultimate goal.

The extent to which human development, peace and security can be achieved must be understood to the extent to which human rights are protected, promoted and fulfilled.

And all the United Nations Member State have a responsibility in this regard.

Our societies as a whole must allow space to process the immense toll of collective grief and trauma currently being experienced.

We must redefine international solidarity.

Not only mean bombs and arming each other with billions of dollars in harmful aid, but there must be substantive equality in how we approach the right to health.

How we re envision the right to health in this context.

In that the right to health as an indivisible, inclusive and solution orientated human right must serve those for the worst left behind.

And we must cut against stigma, discrimination and criminalization and those harmful impacts it continues to have on the realisation of the right to health.

And it is important in calling for global solidarity and international assistance and corporation that in fact, it is in general comment #3 that the Committee drew attention to this obligation on all Member States to take individually, but also through international assistance, especially economic and Technical Support towards other Member States who may require it.

And this is important towards the realisation of the rights recognising the Covenant, such as the right to health.

And with the report I presented to the Council on Health and Care Workers, I would like to pass my deepest gratitude, respect and admiration for all of the health workers around the world who continue to do life saving work amidst very difficult personal and structural circumstances.

It is important that all of us understand and respect your role as the protectors of the right to health and ultimately as human rights defenders.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, special Rapporteur.

We will now close this press conference.

Thank you all for joining us.

OHCHR/Special Procedures - Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on Health - 23 June 2025