Physicians For Human Rights

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a nonprofit human rights organization. It was founded in 1986 by a small group of doctors who believed the unique scientific expertise and authority of health professionals could bring human rights violations to light and provide justice for victims. One of PHR's first missions was to testify on behalf of doctors and human rights activists in Chile, who were working against the military dictator Augusto Pinochet. Since then, PHR has conducted pioneering research and field investigations in more than 40 countries.

PHR focuses on a set of core human rights violations:

  • Atrocities against civilians during armed conflict
  • Violence against women, especially rape as a weapon of war
  • Torture and abuse of detainees
  • Lack of access to health care due to racial, ethnic and gender discrimination

PHR works to prove the health consequences of human rights violations. It also uses its research for advocacy focused on demanding accountability for crimes and recommending critical policy changes.

Read more about Physicians For Human Rights:  History, How PHR Works, Mass Atrocities, Rape in War, Persecution of Health Workers, National Student Program, Founders and Famous PHR Associates

Famous quotes containing the words physicians, human and/or rights:

    “The sick are parasites on society. In a certain state it is indecent to go on living. To continue vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost ought to occasion a deep contempt within society.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “Not infrequently, we encounter copies of important human beings; and here, too, as in the case of paintings, most people prefer the copies to the originals.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
    —Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)