A/HRC/44/46/Add.1
the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in the post-elimination
context, in which Hansen’s disease acquired the epidemiological and sociological
features of a rare disease.
VII. Recommendations
64.
The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government:
(a)
threefold:
Connect restorative justice to prevention. Concrete strategies should be
(i)
Hansen’s disease should be employed in a systematic way as a powerful
and multilayered case study for human rights education through its mandatory
mainstreaming into all levels of education and within all levels of the
educational system’s administration;
(ii)
Human rights education based on the history of Hansen’s disease should
employ first-hand testimonies, personal and collective memories of the struggle
for dignity, and the artistic production of persons affected by Hansen’s disease,
in order to promote awareness of the experience, capabilities and contributions
of affected individuals as the most effective instrument for achieving systemic
change of mindsets;
(iii) Memorialization processes should be developed outside the sanatoriums;
ending the historical isolation of sanatoriums during the lifetime of its residents
should be promoted; and awareness-raising among schoolchildren should be
mainstreamed into all the Hansen’s disease museums in the country;
(b)
Guarantee the non-recurrence of human rights violations through
human rights education and capacity-building of all members of the professions
identified in the Verification Committee report as responsible for the past violations,
particularly the medical community. Ethical standards for medical practice should be
included in medical curricula with direct reference to the history of Hansen’s disease.
Proper regulation, monitoring and accountability of health professionals working with
persons affected by Hansen’s disease should be implemented as a priority so as to
ensure those persons the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and
mental health. The activities of the human rights bodies under the Ministry of Justice
should be revised and broadened to include additional needs and characteristics of
persons affected by Hansen’s disease, including their family members, and the
widespread internalization of stigmatization with provision of psychosocial
counselling and peer counselling. The same mechanism should be duly publicized in
all health-care settings where persons receive medical treatment for Hansen’s disease;
(c)
Implement additional reparation measures, as follows:
(i)
Ensure that rehabilitation, including psychosocial support, is available to
persons affected by Hansen’s disease and their family members as part of the
reparation schemes;
(ii)
Ensure that the voices of women affected by Hansen’s disease and their
female family members, including their artistic expressions, are collected and
heard in order to ensure a gender dimension to awareness-raising and followup to existing remedies;
(iii) Consult with the beneficiaries of existing compensation schemes for the
isolation and sterilization policies, and with family members who were not
included in those schemes, and ensure that the remedies provided include all
victims and are proportional to the gravity of the violations and continuous
suffering;
(d)
Fulfil the obligation of restitution by creating an enabling environment
and adopting the necessary measures to support family reunification. Strategies
should focus on: the participatory design of an action plan; data collection, with
guarantees of the right to privacy; monitoring and accountability devices with
transparent information-sharing; proper budget allocation with targets, indicators
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