The People's Right to Safety - Draft Charter 2002 - India Together

An global effort to delineate an integrated multiple-stakeholder framework towards enhancement of public safety is reaching its first milestone, this May 2002.

A Draft Charter for People’s Right to Safety has been developed by South Asia Forum for Human Rights(SAFHR). The Draft Charter is open for comments at the current time. Send your comments to Mr. Tapan Bose, Secretary General, South Asia Forum for Human Rights, G.P.O. Box 12855, Kathmandu, Nepal. e-mail : [email removed]

March 2002: Safety hazards are proliferating on a global scale and they pose a serious threat to life and health. Effective safety enhancement requires an integrated approach which takes into account several aspects within a framework that allows all these aspects to be viewed comprehensively. The Draft Charter on People’s Right to Safety, currently receving public comments, attempts to delineate such a framework, which involves individuals, community groups, trade unions, public interest organisations, corporate enterprises and government in a plan of common responsibility and duty. The right to life includes the right to live in good health according to currently available knowledge and technology. However, while we would never tolerate a person who introduced cholera germs in the city water supply and then ‘educated’ every one to boil water before drinking it, it is common to create a product or an environment which is likely to cause injury, warn the user to be careful, and then blame the user if a mishap occurs. In the modern world people have to use products and do things at places and at times which are determined by someone else or by society at large. This holds true for activity at the work place, at home and in places of leisure. Increasingly, people have little choice in the design of the home they live in, the design of the tools they use, the work place where they spend a major part of the day, the roads they use, the vehicles in which they travel or the amusement park where they go with their families on weekends and holidays. Indubitably, one aspect of safety is educating people to behave as careful, responsible, human beings. However, to the safety paradigm, the structures within which people are forced to function are a much more important cause of accidents than ‘operator negligence’. . This is particularly true for activities which are universal in nature. Domestic chores, road use and work in offices, factories or farms cannot be restricted to people who will always be careful. These structures are, in turn, rooted in historical power positions in society. For this reason, policy makers and safety professionals in every country find it very difficult to institute changes which actually improve safety levels in society. Clearly, therefore, safety promotion activities will not be successful unless we address the social, economic and technological environments and, the power available to people to influence decision making regarding their own well being. In this context, community and class conflicts are a major complication. The interests of poor communities are often in direct conflict with the interests of the richer ones. Providing safety at the work place to reduce injuries and deaths may reduce the profits of the owners of the company. Slowing down traffic and providing a large number of safer pedestrian crossings crossing annoy car owners. Providing low-cost housing for low income groups takes away expensive land for making larger houses for the richer ones. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that, globally, the problems faced by poor societies are different from those currently prevalent in the rich ones. Nor is the past experience of the currently affluent societies of much use because of fundamental changes in the way systems are organised today. Thus, while the theoretical base of safety promotion measures may have international applicability the actual physical solutions may not. Effective safety promotion also requires a great deal of understanding between professional safety workers, the public and, policy makers because a very large number of findings with respect to safety are counter-intuitive. For example ‘safer’ technologies often promote riskier behaviour. Another, major, cause of confusion is the fact that ‘experts’ disagree on most safety related issues. In this general state of confusion it is easy for vested political and business interests to give safety the go by, based on ‘technical’ and ‘cost-benefit’ analyses. Thus, safety promotion activities and systems need to be coherent in conception, multi-disciplinary in approach and innovative in working. Systems based upon such a foundation cannot be put in place unless there is a societal and political understanding about the ethical and moral responsibility of the State and Civil society to ensure the right to life of all its citizens. Having a common understanding of safety should favour a better co-operation between the variety of disciplines and sectors concerned. It should also stimulate the development of initiatives that can reduce the occurrence of a given problem, and can improve the safety of the population in a comprehensive perspective. This will help to create a positive vision of safety as a value worth promoting in our communities. The Draft Charter of the People’s Right to Safety has been published by SAFHR to initiate the establishment of such a universal paradigm of safety. South Asia Forum for Human Rights Read the Draft Charter The Delhi Declaration On People’s Right to Safety was adopted at the 5th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control, New Delhi, 8th March 2000. Post that, the draft of a Charter for People’s Right to Safety has been developed by South Asia Forum for Human Rights(SAFHR). Revision of the charter is being co-ordinated by SAFHR in collaboration with WHO Collaborating Centres. The Draft Charter is open for comments at the current time. Comments received will be incorporated into a discussion on the Charter at a special Workshop to be organised on 11 May 2002 in Montreal. The final version of the Charter on People’s Right to Safety will be put up for adoption at the closing session of the 6th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control, 12 to 15 May 2002 at Montreal. India Together recommends that interested readers send their comments on the People’s charter as soon as possible to Mr. Tapan Bose, Secretary General, South Asia Forum for Human Rights, G.P.O. Box 12855, Kathmandu, Nepal. e-mail: [email removed]