From 2003, the UN agencies, such as WHO and UNICEF, started to use the HRBA to inform their work. In 2013, WHO published the document Women’s and children’s health: evidence of impact of human rights (2) putting forward the key principles of a HRBA adopted to the health care setting and showing evidence of efforts collected around the world. According to WHO:

“(A human rights-based approach to health) aims to realize the right to the highest attainable standard of health (or ”right to health”) and other health-related rights. It underscores that the right to health includes timely and appropriate health care, as well as the underlying determinants of health, such as safe and potable water, sanitation, health-related information and education, and gender equality. It also emphasizes that health-related services and facilities have to be available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality, and that human rights standards and principles, such as participation, equality, non-discrimination and accountability, should guide programming in all health-related sectors and at all stages of the process. A human rights-based approach is not only about the achievement of certain goals or outcomes; it is about their achievement through a participatory, inclusive, transparent and responsive process (2).”

As described in the quote above, the HRBA to health is a comprehensive planning approach that must take into account the comprehensive health situation, including the social determinants affecting a population’s health outcomes; the responsibility of the health care system to ensure that there are enough health care services (principle of availability), organised in a way that is distributed equally throughout a country, including specific actions that guarantee that all people enjoy the same type of care, even if they live in remote areas (principles of accessibility and equality); that the population is aware of the existing services available to them (principle of information) and that they are able to afford them (principle of affordability). Importantly, this is a process that calls for the transparent responsibility of the system and all the stakeholders involved (principle of accountability). This means that there should be effective planning and capacity building to ensure that all professionals working in the health care system, including the health professionals working directly with people have the necessary skills. Finally, it is important to mention one very important human rights principle that is often overlooked: the principle of participation. All people, whether adults or children have the right to participate in all matters that affect their lives. This means that children also have the right to express their opinion and participate in processes for the development, assessment and improvement of health care services (3).

Other useful and important documents have been published that demonstrate how the HRBA to health can be applied in the context of child health and to address specific child health issues. See for example the 2014 Technical guidance on the application of a human rights-based approach to the implementation of policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity of children under 5 years of age (Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights).

Why do we need to assess children’s rights in health services

When we talk about improving child health care, we must inevitably discuss how to plan a child health care service. In order to ensure that health care is effectively delivered and planned, it is fundamental to know the situation and to identify gaps for improvement by assessing the situation, to address those gaps by promoting actions that will contribute to change, and to monitor and evaluate change, to ensure that our intervention is having the expected effects. In other words, we must apply a quality improvement cycle, as illustrated below: