WUNRN
On the occasion of International Women's Day (8 March), UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, issued the following statement:
GENEVA (OHCHR) – Laws that discriminate against women are still to be
found on the statute books of virtually every country in the world, and
repeated promises by states to revise or repeal them are not being honoured,
the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Friday.
Arbour, who was speaking on the eve of International Women's Day, said a newly
released report commissioned by OHCHR shows that "the effects of this
failure to create true legal parity between men and women in all sorts of
social, economic and political arenas is having a detrimental effect on women
in many countries – sometimes to a devastating degree."
Perhaps the most pernicious and dangerous discrimination involves sexual abuse
that is not recognized as such under a country's laws, or is in effect tolerated
by legislation that is either vague or not enforced. "Rape is recognized
as a crime in most legal systems," said Arbour. "But, even when it
is, inadequate legislation or local traditions often mean laws are not properly
enforced. In addition, at least 53 states still do not outlaw rape within
marriage, and men frequently enjoy total impunity for physical as well as
sexual violence against their wives."
"Efforts to combat violence against women will be severely hampered so
long as the legal frameworks to protect them, ensure their rights, and grant
them the possibility of economic and social independence, are inadequate,"
Arbour said. "In some countries the legal disparities are blatant, in
others they are much more subtle. What is clear, is that many states are
failing to live up to their promises to review their laws and root out
institutional discrimination, and millions of women continue to suffer grave
injustices as a result."
Discriminatory laws exist in an extraordinary range of situations and
activities, some relatively minor, others extremely serious. In some countries,
for example, married women are forbidden to keep their own names, whereas in
others they have no right to own land or inherit property. In some countries,
women do not have freedom of movement, unless they are accompanied by male
guardians, and in other countries their educational and employment prospects
are heavily circumscribed, and they cannot hold public office.
Some citizenship laws prevent women from passing on their nationality to their
children. If the father's nationality is also unavailable for some reason, this
can result in both male and female children being condemned to statelessness.
Children also suffer in other ways because of the lack of rights afforded to
their mothers: in many cases, men – however abusive, violent or irresponsible
they may be – retain total control over their children's lives, and their
mothers are marginalized.
The world's governments have made extensive commitments to remove and revise
discriminatory laws in the context of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women
in Beijing, and its follow-up. Similar commitments have been made by the 185
ratifying states to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women and other fundamental human rights treaties.
"Many states appear to have simply ignored the commitments they have
made," Arbour said. "It is shameful that, in the 60th anniversary
year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental rights are still
not enjoyed by many women around the world. In some cases, they suffer from
multiple forms of discrimination, such as race, age or disabilities as well as
their gender. Unless states take their commitments seriously, investing in
women and girls will remain a matter of rhetoric."
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