Ongoing lunacy in the EU and the UN

[unixronin]

It was recently reported (admittedly in the Daily Mail) that the Council of Europe human-rights group is calling for even a disciplinary smack to be prosecuted as assault.  Reportedly only "a handful" of European states, including Britain, France and Poland, are holding out against the ban, which has been passed by some 20 nations.  One wonders how much longer it will be before all possible ways of disciplining a child have been ruled to cause "serious psychological harm", and what will happen when the resulting generation reaches adulthood.

Mr. Burgess, Mr. Anthony Burgess, to the white courtesy phone, please.

But wait!  There's more!  It is being reported by outlets including Fox, The National, and The Jerusalem Post that Iran has been granted a seat on the UN Commission on the Status of Women.  Yes, a theocratic nation in which women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities; a nation in which women are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of laws that treat them as chattels; a nation in which the law requires that women be lashed for "immodesty" and stoned to death for anything from favoring an unapproved boyfriend to being raped; a nation in which a prominent state cleric recently declared that immodest women cause earthquakes; this nation has been seated on a UN Commission that is supposed to monitor state-sanctioned abuse of women, "conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality."

One can only assume that Iran's appointment to the Commission is to help it ensure that states that sanction abuse of women do it properly.

Comments

UN Commission on the Status of Women

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

UN press release here (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ecosoc6419.doc.htm).

Next, the Council elected 11 new members to fill an equal number of vacancies on the Commission on the Status of Women for four-year terms beginning at the first meeting of the Commission’s fifty-sixth session in 2011 and expiring at the close of its fifty-ninth session in 2015. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Zimbabwe were elected from the Group of African States; Iran and Thailand were elected from the Group of Asian States; Estonia and Georgia were elected from the Group of Eastern European States; Jamaica was elected from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States; and Belgium, Netherlands and Spain were elected from the Group of Western European and Other States.

WtF? Thailand? Surely that's at least as bad. But that we don't hear about from Fox, which I assume is banging the war drums. I like the National article (from the UAE), which cites Iranian feminists.

Commission web site: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/index.html

Re: UN Commission on the Status of Women

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I read it more as a "WTF?" than a banging of the war drum.

I'm unclear on the detailed status of women in Thailand, but my impression is that Thai women are at least not treated as poorly as women in repressive Islamic states are (aside from the whole Thai sex-tourism trade thing, which I see as a separate problem).

Re: UN Commission on the Status of Women

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Sex tourism is a big feminist issue, after all.

What struck me about the Fox article was that most of it was repeating Iran's poor record on women's rights--there was almost nothing on the appointment or the UN Commission itself, which seems an omission.

At least Iran and Thailand are only two of 45 members of the Commission. Still, uck, phew.

Re: UN Commission on the Status of Women

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

What struck me about the Fox article was that most of it was repeating Iran's poor record on women's rights--there was almost nothing on the appointment or the UN Commission itself, which seems an omission.

You have a point. Sad to say, well-rounded, insightful coverage seems to be the exception rather than the rule in today's mass media.

Re: UN Commission on the Status of Women

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I know that clitoridectomy is practiced in Zimbabwe, and am not sure about the Congo. Nice representation, there. Some might argue that it gives balance. You know, between countries where women have rights and those who don't. Snark.