12. Human Rights

I. Principles on Infant Feeding and Nutrition Rights, Prof. George Kent, University of Hawai'i/WABA, USA .

International law is not explicit about how the human right to adequate food applies to infant feeding, so there is a need for its articulation. This workshop reviewed the implications of international human rights for infant feeding as formulated at WABA's Forum 1 in Thailand in 1996 and in the online Consultation on Human Rights and Infant Nutrition launched in 1999. Human rights principles were then illustrated through their application to the case of marketing of breastmilk substitutes.

There remain some major issues on which consensus has not yet been achieved. In this workshop the difficult question of whether infants should be viewed as having the right to be breastfed, thus obligating their mothers to breastfeed was also explored.

II. Human Rights and Infant Feeding in the Context of HIV, Monik St-Pierre, Facilitator

How should women who are diagnosed as HIV-positive feed their infants? How should that question be decided, and who should who decide it? What are the relevant facts, and what are the relevant principles? This workshop examined the human rights dimensions of this issue.