Latest news with #UNCommittee
National Post
16 hours ago
- Health
- National Post
Liberals show no signs of limiting MAID despite 'extremely concerned' UN report
OTTAWA — Ottawa is giving no sign that it intends to amend existing legislation on medical assistance in dying — something a UN committee called for earlier this spring. Article content The federal minister responsible for disabilities spoke at a hearing of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities last week, about two months after the committee called on Canada to repeal the 2021 law that expanded eligibility for assisted dying to those whose deaths were not reasonably foreseeable. Article content Article content Article content Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu gave a speech at the UN last Tuesday to mark 15 years since Canada ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article content Article content 'It's about, for me, making relationships in this space and making sure that I have a really strong connection with the community, which I think is really important to be a good minister,' she said in an interview after the speech. The report said the committee is 'extremely concerned' about Canada's policy on track 2 medical assistance in dying. Article content '(T)he concept of 'choice' creates a false dichotomy, setting up the premise that if persons with disabilities are suffering, it is valid for (Canada) to enable their death without providing safeguards that guarantee the provision of support,' the report said. Article content In a written statement, a spokesperson for Hajdu said the government thanks the committee for its report. Article content Article content 'MAID is a deeply personal choice. We will make sure that the rights of persons with disabilities are upheld and protected,' said Jennifer Kozelj. Article content Article content Disability rights groups in Canada have argued the law singles out people with disabilities who are suffering because they're unable to access proper support. Article content Last September, Inclusion Canada was among a group of organizations that filed a Charter of Rights challenge against what's known as track 2 MAID. Article content 'It was crystal clear — the United Nations said they need to repeal track 2 medical assistance in dying,' she said. Article content Garnett Genuis, the Conservative employment critic, said he came away from the UN event worried about Canada's international reputation being harmed by what he called Ottawa's 'failures to uphold our obligations to protect the rights of people with living with disabilities.'
BBC News
19-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Caithness campaigners welcome UN report on maternity services
A campaign group for improved access to maternity support in Caithness has welcomed UN recommendations on health services in rural areas. The community-led Caithness Health Action Team (Chat) has been leading calls for the restoration of a consultant-led maternity service in Wick.A report by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has raised concerns about "high rates of maternal mortality" and "disparities in access to sexual and reproductive health services" affecting women and girls in remote Highland said it provided as many gynaecology and maternity procedures as it could in Caithness General Hospital. The Geneva-based UN committee has been examining a number of issues related to human rights across the United a section on sexual and reproductive health rights, the committee said women and girls in "peripheral and remote areas" were adversely affected by maternal mortality and disparities in access to sexual and reproductive services and recommended that the governments of the UK "increase efforts to ensure equal access to maternal health services" for migrant women and women from ethnic minority groups. It also recommended that facilities be properly equipped for antenatal, perinatal and postnatal care, "particularly in rural areas". The report went on to say that the availability of sexual and reproductive services should be strengthened, particularly for women and girls in rural and remote areas. 'Extra support' Chat has been campaigning for consultant-led maternity support to return to service was replaced by a midwife-led unit in 2016 because of safety concerns. People in the north Highlands can face round trips of 210 miles (338km) or more to give birth in campaigner Iain Gregory said the UN report provided "a huge amount of extra support" and he hoped the intervention would bring changes to the current said the UN committee considered written submissions by Chat in the process of writing the report.A spokesperson for NHS Highland said it provided as many gynaecology and maternity procedures as it could in Caithness General health board added that it had increased the midwifery team in Wick, with high risk or complex cases continuing to be referred to Scottish government said it was considering the recommendations of the report carefully.
RNZ News
09-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
'Another Nakba': UN committee warns of new mass expulsion in Palestinian territories
Palestinians leave the scene after performing Friday prayers near the lands that Israeli settlers are threatening to confiscate, after the armed Israeli forces prevented them from reaching their lands, in the Dhahiriya area, south of Hebron, on May 9, 2025. Photo: MOSAB SHAWER The world could be witnessing "another Nakba" expulsion of Palestinians, a United Nations committee warned on Friday, accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and saying it was inflicting "unimaginable suffering" on Palestinians. For Palestinians, any forced displacement evokes memories of the "Nakba" , or catastrophe - the mass displacement in the war that accompanied to Israel's creation in 1948. "Israel continues to inflict unimaginable suffering on the people living under its occupation, whilst rapidly expanding confiscation of land as part of its wider colonial aspirations," warned a UN committee tasked with probing Israeli practices affecting Palestinian rights. "What we are witnessing could very well be another Nakba," it said, after concluding an annual mission to Amman. During the 1948 war, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became known as "the Nakba". The descendants of some 160,000 Palestinians who managed to remain in what became Israel presently make about 20 percent of its population. The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1968. The committee is currently composed of the Sri Lankan, Malaysian and Senegalese ambassadors to the UN in New York. "What the world is witnessing could very well be a second Nakba. The goal of wider colonial expansion is clearly the priority of the government of Israel," they said in their report. "Security operations are used as a smokescreen for rapid land grabbing, mass displacement, dispossession, demolitions, forced evictions and ethnic cleansing, in order to replace the Palestinian communities with Jewish settlers." - AFP
