Human Rights Articles

By Sue England, UN Rep (IWC Munich)

At HRC41, there were two days focused on women's rights, June 27 and 28.  You can view sessions of the HRC on UN Web TV. Here is a link to live feed and archived videos.

The session continued on June 28 with country statements being made and questions for the Special Rapporteurs (Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (SRVAW) and the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children (SRT) are accumulating and will have to be answered.

The themes that are contentious and are being addressed by many questions are:

1. Will the mandate of the SRVAW be continued after it was created at the Beijing Conference 24 years ago? It ends next year.
2. Many states and organisations are very concerned about the global push back against existing women’s rights. A key concept here is that of ‘universality’. One can tell the stance of states and organisations by what they say about this. Universality means the idea that exactly the same human rights must apply to all human beings, no buts, no ifs. They must be the same rights, there can be no exceptions. In particular, women cannot be denied rights that are given to men, throughout the whole world, in any country. The opposition to this is usually couched in needing to protect religious, cultural and social terms. In other words, the existing religious, cultural and social norms in a country must be respected, and that means women’s position cannot be changed, in particular they cannot be given human rights which are contrary to existing religious, cultural and social rules. Universality cannot be allowed. This is also expressed by states, saying – we will protect our women, we will use our own rules, which of course is code for, butt out. We do not accept international norms and we will not have interference from outside or take advice about what happens to ‘our women.’ If you listen in, check whether countries agree to uphold ‘universality’ and plead to fight the threats to it, or use the ‘don’t worry about our women’s human rights, we are dealing with it,’ or if the state ignores the problem.
3. The SRT for tackling trafficking wants a new expression adopted for trafficking victims, saying states should ensure their ‘social inclusion’. The old wording for this issue ‘reintegration’ implies these women (sometimes men) are outside society and have to be in some way readapted to being a normal human being, having become tainted or in some ways having been responsible for what has happened to them. One state even said we must try to help women, so that the women will not go back to being re-trafficked, as if being trafficked is a choice anybody makes!
4. What is to be done about continuing damage to this work for women being done by lack of adequate and secure future funding and a lack of co-ordinated working at the UN?