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UN credibility takes a step back.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council voted late last week to place Saudi Arabia on the Commission on the Status of Women for a four-year term beginning in 2018, despite that country’s appalling record on the treatment of women.
Hillel Neuer, director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, expressed his outrage in a statement Friday:



“Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “It’s absurd.”

“Every Saudi woman,” said Neuer, “must have a male guardian who makes all critical decisions on her behalf, controlling a woman’s life from her birth until death. Saudi Arabia also bans women from driving cars.”

According to UN Watch, the United States forced a formal vote, against China’s wishes, instead of allowing the normal practice of allowing regional groupings to select the nations on the commission by themselves, in secret.

However, the vote was still held behind closed doors, meaning it is not yet clear precisely which countries voted to honor one of the world’s foremost abusers of women’s rights. Neuer calculates, based on the voting math, that at least five European Union member states would have had to vote for Saudi Arabia for it to win a seat on the commission.


The U.S. State Department’s most recent human rights report on Saudi Arabia (largely prepared by the outgoing Obama administration) notes that despite being allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015, the state of women’s rights in the kingdom remains generally abysmal:


Women continued to face significant discrimination under law and custom, and many remained uninformed about their rights. …

The law does not provide for the same legal status and rights for women as for men, and since there is no codified personal-status law, judges made decisions regarding family matters based on their interpretations of Islamic law. Although they may legally own property and are entitled to financial support from their guardian, women have fewer political or social rights than men, and society treated them as unequal members in the political and social spheres. The guardianship system requires that every woman have a close male relative as her “guardian” with the legal authority to approve her travel outside of the country. A guardian also has authority to approve some types of business licenses and study at a university or college. Women can make their own determinations concerning hospital care. Women can work without their guardian’s permission, but most employers required women to have such permission. A husband who verbally (rather than through a court process) divorces his wife or refuses to sign final divorce papers continues to be her legal guardian.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia reduced a Sri Lankan woman’s sentence for adultery from execution by stoning to three years in prison.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-2 ... ts-council

   

I think the Saudis have the right idea, women shouldn't be allowed to vote or drive. Keep them in the kitchen. Calm down, just joking

   

This of course assumes it had any credibility left. Wait, isn't this a repeat. Didn't we already see a situation where the UN wanted NK or China to chair the Human Rights Commission and SA to chair the Women's Rights Commission a few years back?

   

What do some of Saudi Arabia's greatest allies and best friends, like Canada, the United States, and Britain, think of something like this?

   

And the Saudis will send a delegation of male conservative fundamentalist mullahs to sit with all the women delegates and make decisions.
No wait that would be Trumps preferred US delegation...

   

The US opinion is cited in the article.

   

It's the unstated opinion, which is basically a bored "meh" from all our two-faced countries, that makes the difference behind the scenes.

   

Let's see. Syria on the Human rights commission, Afghanistan on the Drug Commission, Saudi Arabia on the Women's rights commission.

As an organization the UN's nothing more than a hypocritical, nepotistic group of self serving assholes who do things that defy logic just to further their own sick agenda's.

   

Very smart. Force your opponent to defend a position that is indefensible. Excellent debating tactic.

Instead of allowing them the comfort of defending their Women's rights record using, it's "our business", this puts their record in the spotlight where if they are proposing policy that is unjust, they can be called out easily and if it contradicts their own policy, they look like hypocrites.

Actually surprised they took the position.

It reminds me of allowing China to host the Olympics while having a horrid humans rights record. It shone a spotlight on the country and since then, many archaic policies in the country have changed for the better.(Like the one child policy) I'm not saying it is flawless now or even that this was a direct cause/effect.

What I do believe though is that if a member is not even made to feel part of the "global community" there there is simply nothing that would compel them to act according to international norms.

Good job UN. Keep up the amazing work!

   

Critisism, of the Saudi's stance on women's rights will change nothing, so your point is moot.

Just shows the idiocy of those single synapse buffoons in the UN.

   

Or it shows the mindset of those who can only think within their conservative limits.
We can't learn, so they obviously can't.

Surprised some of you haven't come out and claimed they'll send women who defend Saudi policy and they'll force it on the rest of us...yet

   

The irony is that the Saudis think the policies they have are for the protection of women. Restaurants are divided between 'men' and 'families' because of the thought that young men alone behave badly. Women can't drive or go out unescorted by a man, and women in a business environment must be covered so they don't get attacked by men behaving badly.

Of course, they get it wrong by punishing the women and not holding the men to a higher standard. But how are they going to learn except by example?

   

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