Children with Hiv & Their Right to Food

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

FOOD SECURITY 2

WHAT IS THE RIGHT TO FOOD? 3

RIGHT TO HEALTH 6

FOOD AID PROGRAMMES 6

INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS) 9

CONCLUSION 10

BIBLIOGRAPHY III

INTRODUCTION

Poverty is a leading promoter of the epidemic of HIV/AIDS. The social and economic conditions that are so rampant in poverty-stricken countries make it easier for and contribute to the vulnerability that arises from HIV/AIDS infection. This then turns into a vicious cycle as the virus itself creates and generates the environment that enables the disease to survive, as well as amplifying its efficacy. The researcher would be delving deeper into the current situation of children, as 50% of the approximate 16,000 infections that occur daily are within this group, especially in the Indian context.

These homes have no access to adequate food and medicines, are divested of basic opportunities and are usually hit by unemployment. Due to this, coupled with the rapid toll that the disease itself takes on the human body, the plight of these children is very serious.

The drugs, ARVs and ARTs, are strong and very harsh. They take a serious toll on the physical wellbeing of a person. Thus children on these kinds of treatment have to have a higher intake of food to cope with it. But where will they get it?

The question of treatment has always been on the backburner in India. Almost all the money given by the Bill Gates Foundation has been spent, on private groups and NGOs in promoting condoms and other prevention measures. The focus has always been on curbing the spread of the virus. Only much later has the ethical question of treatment arisen. The people already affected were literally "already declared dead" and written off by the state.

There is now a dire need to evaluate the help being given to the affected victims, especially the children. We have known for a long time what causes HIV infection, but we are only now starting to understand what fuels the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The most characteristic change in addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis was the view that to achieve positive results and address the root causes, a human rights based approach was needed. Many international conventions have been on the forefront of such an approach.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which India ratified in 1992, lists The Right to Survival as one of the essential Rights of the Child. According to the Convention, the "Right to Survival includes the right to life, the attainable standard of health, nutrition and an adequate standard of living. It also includes the right to a name and nationality". These rights seek to ensure that children have nutritious food, potable drinking water, a secure home and access to health facilities.

FOOD SECURITY

One of the key concerns is the improvement of food security. The 2005 World Health Organization (WHO) conference on HIV/AIDS, Food and nutrition security in Durban, South Africa, reviewed the evidence for the link between food security and HIV/AIDS and called for the integration of nutrition into the package of care, treatment and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. Increasing acceptance of the link is reflected in the June 2006 United Nations Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, in which paragraph 28 highlights rights to food such as availability, accessibility and adequacy: The United Nations Member States resolve to integrate food and nutritional support, with the goal that all people at all times will have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences, for an active and healthy life, as part of a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS.

The Right to Food Guidelines also assert that the right to food has a significant role in fighting the disease and needs to be taken into account.

The need for drastic action is imminent. The problem is getting worse all over the world. In a special report to the General Assembly, the situation in Southern Africa is seen to be getting worse as funding shortfalls are forcing WFP to cut operations across the region. In Zambia, WFP may cut food assistance to 500,000 vulnerable children, widows, orphans and HIV/AIDS patients. In Namibia in January 2007, WFP cut rations to 90,000 orphans and vulnerable children, jeopardizing their access to sufficient food at an age when realizing their right to food is crucial to children's healthy development. It is now well recognised that household food insecurity in rural and urban southern Africa cannot be properly understood if HIV/AIDS is not factored into the analysis. Thus, programmes have to be modified to cope up.

Research on the vicious circle of HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition security has changed the focus of HIV/AIDS and food-security programmes: food-security aspects are now included in treatment programmes and vice versa. It is now acknowledged that a rights-based approach to the epidemic is fundamental.

WHAT IS THE RIGHT TO FOOD?

The Indian Constitution doesn't explicitly declare the right to food as a fundamental right, but it is implicitly enshrined in Art. 21 as the fundamental right to life of every Indian citizen. Art. 47 (Directive Principles of State Policy) is unequivocal: "The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties..."

A petition was filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties in April 2001, to seek legal enforcement of the right to food. This case, popularly known as the Right to Food Case , has since become a rallying point for trade unions, activists, grassroots organisations and NGOs to make the right to food a justiciable right.

The Indian judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has on many occasions reaffirmed that the "right to life enshrined in Article 21 means something more than animal instinct and includes the right to live with dignity; it would include all these aspects which make life meaningful, complete and living" . Other statutory constitutional institutions like the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have also stated: "There is a fundamental right to be free from hunger".

There are a number of definitions