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For some years, the German public has been debating the case of migrant workers receiving German benefits for children living abroad, which has been scandalised as a case of “benefit tourism.” This points to a failure to recognise a striking imbalance between the output of the German welfare state to migrants and the input it receives from migrant domestic workers. In this article I discuss how this input is being rendered invisible or at least underappreciated by sexist, racist, and classist practices of othering. To illustrate the point, I will use examples from two empirical research projects that looked into how families in Germany outsource various forms of reproductive work to both female and male migrants from Eastern Europe. Drawing on the concept of othering developed in feminist and postcolonial literature and their ideas of how privileges and disadvantages are interconnected, I will put this example into the context of literature on racism, gender, and care work migration. I show how migrant workers fail to live up to the normative standards of work, family life, and gender relations and norms set by a sedentary society. A complex interaction of supposedly “natural” and “objective” differences between “us” and “them” are at work to justify everyday discrimination against migrants and their institutional exclusion. These processes are also reflected in current political and public debates on the commodification and transnationalisation of care.
The origin and justification of human rights, whether anchored in biological theory, natural law theory, or interests theory, as well as their cultural specificity and actual value as international legal instruments are subject to ongoing lively debates. As theoretical and rhetorical discourses challenge and enrich current understanding of the value of human rights and their relevance to democratic governance, they have found their way into public health in recent decades and play today an increasing role in the shaping of health policies, programs and practice. Human rights define the obligations of states to their people and towards each other, create grounds for governmental accountability and inspire recognition of, and action on, factors influencing people’s attainment of the highest possible standard of health. This article highlights the evolution that has brought health and human rights together in mutually reinforcing ways. It draws from the experience gained in the global response to HIV/AIDS, summarizes key dimensions of public health and of human rights and suggests a manner in which these dimensions intersect in a framework for analysis and action.