19/01/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Elected officials are fully responsible for building climate resilience: we are in the same fight as young people. It is up to us to take the right decisions today,” said Jennifer De Temmerman (France, ALDE), at a round table on “Representative democracy against climate crisis”, organised by...
21/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
A PACE committee has approved a wide-ranging report making a series of ethical, legal and practical recommendations for the safe and fair worldwide deployment of vaccines against Covid-19, and to encourage their uptake in the face of “vaccine hesitancy”. “Scientists have done a remarkable job in...
01/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
As the world prepares to be vaccinated against COVID-19, PACE parliamentarians have heard from regulators, vaccine experts and ethicists about how to ensure a vaccine developed against the clock is safe, who should be first in line to receive it, how to ensure its fair distribution globally, and...
01/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Often difficult to diagnose and disabling, chronic and long-term illnesses affect the lives of patients – who may be deprived of their autonomy, their rights to participation and full integration into society – and are a source of discrimination,” said the Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable...
01/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Children joined experts at a PACE parliamentary hearing to demand urgent action on climate change from European governments – and to argue that continued inaction would be a violation of their right to a healthy environment. The virtual joint hearing, organised by PACE’s Committee on Social...
17/11/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Joint statement by Baroness Doreen E. Massey (United Kingdom, SOC), PACE Rapporteur on “Addressing sexual violence against children: stepping up action and co-operation in Europe”, and Dimitri Houbron (France, ALDE), PACE Rapporteur on “For an assessment of the means and provisions to combat...
12/11/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Widespread sharing of sexual images and videos produced by children themselves has become a challenge that we must urgently address, especially as the risks of sexual exploitation and abuse have increased in the context of the lockdown and resulting isolation of children,” said Dimitri Houbron...
21/10/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The time has come to make the world more ‘autism-friendly’, PACE’s Social Affairs Committee has urged, calling for “person-centred and life-long support” for people with autism and their families. In a resolution based on a report by Sevinj Fataliyeva (Azerbaijan, EC/DA), approved today during a...
09/10/2020 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Béatrice Fresko-Rolfo (Monaco, ALDE), PACE’s General Rapporteur on Violence against Women, and Baroness Doreen Massey (United Kingdom, SOC), rapporteur on addressing sexual violence against children, issued the following statement to mark the International Day of the Girl Child, 11 October: “25...
22/09/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“The world of work will be increasingly exposed to the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, with the particular risk that AI replaces humans in more jobs than it creates new ones,” said the Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development Committee, meeting today by...
22/09/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Social Affairs Committee is calling for a “dedicated legal instrument”, preferably binding and with global reach, to ensure Artificial Intelligence respects human rights principles, particularly in health care. It would lay down benchmarks in areas such as privacy, confidentiality, the...
22/09/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“There is a wide variety of chronic and long-term illnesses – such as Lyme disease, Crohn's disease, or Charcot's disease – which cause physical disorders that are often disabling, impacting on society's perception of patients and preventing them from fully enjoying their rights and excluding...