The International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations (IFHHRO) was established as a network of organisations with similar human rights agenda, upon an initiative of the Johannes Wier Foundation (the Netherlands) and Physicians for Human Rights (USA) in 1989. The objectives of IFHHRO are the protection and promotion of the right to health and other health related human rights, the mobilisation of medical expertise in the investigation of human rights violations, and the protection of health workers seeking the promotion of human rights. These goals are pursued by means of advocacy, fact-finding missions, research and publications, education and special projects.

IFHHRO campaigned for the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, participated in drafting the Istanbul Protocol for the investigation and documentation of torture. The IFHHRO was a consultant for the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on the Right to Health. Affiliated organisations have developed expertise on a variety of subjects such as hunger strikes, patient's rights and psychiatry, health and human rights under political violence.

The IFHHRO has the following Affiliates: Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) - USA, PHR - UK, PHR - Denmark, PHR - South Africa, PHR - Israel, Palestinian PHR, the Johannes Wier Foundation (the Netherlands), the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT, India), the Health and Human Rights Foundation (HHRF, Bangladesh) and the Zimbabwean Association of Doctors for Human Rights. And Observer Organisations are: Amnesty International, the British Medical Association, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Turkish Medical Association, the World Medical Association and the International Council of Nurses.


The Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT)

The Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT), which is a centre founded by the Anusandhan Trust in 1994, has been working with a rights based perspective on health and health care for over a decade. CEHAT considers health and health care as a human right. Socially relevant and rigorous academic health research, advocacy and action undertaken by CEHAT is for the well being of disadvantaged masses, for strengthening peoples' health movements and for realizing right to health and healthcare. CEHAT acts as an interface between progressive peoples' movements, social policy and academia.

CEHAT's projects are based on its ideological commitment and priorities and are focused on four broad themes, (1) Health Services and Financing, (2) Health Legislation, Ethics and Patient's Rights, (3) Women's Health and (4) Investigation and Treatment of Psychosocial Trauma. An increasing part of CEHAT's work is being done collaboratively and in partnership with other organisations and institutions, including public health agencies. Among its current activities CEHAT is involved in a major national initiative on health as a human right with the idea of promoting and advocating universal access to basic healthcare, is running a primary healthcare program focusing on training health workers in peoples' organisations and building capacities of the latter in advocacy for strengthening local public health systems, is collaborating with a public hospital to run a crises centre for survivors of domestic violence, is undertaking research on healthcare systems and financing strategies, is coordinating a national initiative of research and advocacy on abortion and related issues, is advocating and campaigning against gender discriminatory practices like pre-conception and pre-natal sex-selection and domestic violence, is promoting and advocating use of ethical review of social science and health research and is involved in health and human rights education.