It’s International Human Rights Day!
Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now - is all about showing the tangible impact of human rights. And yesterday, our McCabe Centre team explored perspectives on adopting a human rights-based approach for cancer prevention and care, joining with other members of the cancer community and human rights experts on a VCCC Alliance online session.
The session featured the McCabe Centre’s Hayley Jones and Tarishi Desai; as well as the Human Rights Law Centre’s Daney Faddoul whose work focuses on advocacy for a National Human Rights Act in Australia; Natalie Maxwell-Davis, a member of Cancer Council Victoria’s Community Advisory Network who has lived experience of cancer and is committed to improving the experiences and outcomes of others affected by cancer; and Professor Phillip Parente, Director of Cancer Services at Eastern Health and Co-Chair of Cancer Council Victoria’s Clinical Network, who has also completed a Masters in Human Rights Law.
All aspects of cancer prevention and control are human rights issues – yet human rights principles are under-utilised in policy and advocacy framing for cancer prevention and care.
The Australian Government has made international commitments to protect and advance human rights and is currently considering how to better protect these obligations domestically.
Given this, it’s crucial that the cancer community better understand the links between human rights and cancer, how a human rights framing of cancer prevention and care can improve outcomes for people affected by cancer and provide cancer advocates with a lever to hold governments and systems to account on their obligations.
The session looked at:
- Why human rights are relevant to all aspects of cancer prevention and control.
- Australia’s key human rights law obligations relevant to cancer prevention and control.
- The status of human rights protection in Australia for people affected by cancer.
- Clinical and community perspectives on respecting the rights of people affected by cancer.
- Learnings from overseas and across Australia on the benefits of stronger human rights protection for cancer control.
- How a national human rights act can improve the lives of people affected by cancer and reduce the burden of cancer in Victoria and Australia.
See more, on our Factsheet on Human Rights, Law & Cancer here.
The recording is now available here: https://vcccalliancelearn.org.au/using-human-rights-cancer-control
About our McCabe Centre’s Speakers
Ms Hayley Jones
Director, McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer
Hayley leads the McCabe Centre’s legal experts based in Australia, Kenya, New Zealand, Samoa and the Philippines. Through world-leading research and training programs, the McCabe Centre empowers individuals, organisations and governments to use law to prevent cancer and other noncommunicable diseases, and to advance equitable health care for all people.
Tarishi Desai
Manager, Treatment & Supportive Care, McCabe Centre
Tarishi leads our work on using law to address cancer care and control issues including improving access to cancer care, human rights and cancer inequities, and the regulation of health service providers and health information. Tarishi sits on the Advisory Board of the Union for International Cancer Control’s Cancer Advocates Program.
The VCCC Alliance is a powerful partnership between 10 leading research, academic and clinical institutions working together to expedite and amplify leading-edge cancer research, knowledge and expertise to improve outcomes for people affected by cancer.
See more about the VCCC here.
And the McCabe Centre hosts the WHO Collaborating Centre of Law and Noncommunicable Disease (NCDs) and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Knowledge Hub on Legal Challenges. For more information, please contact info@mccabecentre.org.