A/HRC/38/37 29. As well as requiring that States take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care, in order to ensure, on the basis of equality of men and women, access to health-care services, the right to health framework calls for attention to be paid to the underlying determinants of women’s health. 38 Interventions to prevent and treat diseases and conditions affecting women, and to respond to gender-based violence should be part of a national strategy to promote health throughout the course of life. The health needs and rights of women belonging to vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as migrant women, refugee and internally displaced women, older women, indigenous women and women with disabilities, should receive special attention. 39 As recommended by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, States should: (a) monitor the provision of health services to women by public, non-governmental and private organizations, to ensure equal access and quality of care; (b) require all health services to be consistent with the human rights of women, including the rights to autonomy, privacy, confidentiality, informed consent and choice; and (c) ensure comprehensive, mandatory, gender-sensitive training on women’s health and human rights for health workers.40 (b) Addressing neglected health concerns: mental health 30. The right to health encompasses both physical and mental health, without placing preferential value on either one. Yet, despite mental health conditions affecting one in four persons over their lives, persons affected by mental health conditions experience social and other forms of exclusion on a broad scale, and mental health remains marginalized in many ways. 41 The stigma and discrimination to which many persons with mental health conditions are subjected, in the community, in other social environments and contexts and in health-care settings, discourage them from seeking the health care and services they need. A frequently isolating experience, living with mental health conditions is commonly typified by the denial of many other rights, such as the rights to work, to education, to an adequate standard of living and to housing. Forced treatment and other harmful practices within mental health institutions, such as solitary confinement, forced sterilization, the use of restraints, forced medication and overmedication, not only violate the right to free and informed consent provided for by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but constitute ill-treatment that may amount to torture. 42 Marginalization of mental health is a significant challenge: there are data and research gaps, especially with regard to the human rights situation of persons with mental health conditions, and financial and human resource allocations for mental health are all symptomatic of the lesser value routinely ascribed to mental health.43 31. As the above outline endeavours to demonstrate, the marginalization of certain health concerns inevitably brings about the marginalization of affected persons. A core obligation under the right to health is the duty to adopt and implement a national public health strategy and plan of action, on the basis of epidemiological evidence, addressing the health concerns of the whole population. 44 A participatory and transparent process, incorporating periodic reviews, should be employed in the development of the strategy and plan, and special attention accorded to all vulnerable or marginalized groups. The neglect of these issues in health and other relevant policy, and of the persons affected by them, signals certain serious shortcomings in ensuring the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health services, facilities and goods, and in upholding accountability and the right 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 10 See Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, art. 12 (1); Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 24 (1999) on women and health, para. 6. See Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 24, paras. 6 and 29. Ibid., para. 31 (d), (e) and (f). See www.who.int/mental_health/maternal-child/child_adolescent/en/; and submission of International Disability and Development Consortium, pp. 2–3. See A/HRC/34/32, para. 33. Ibid., paras. 19 and 21. See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14, para. 43 (f).