Commentary and Newsletters

Anne Bayefsky

The UN and Women’s Rights: The Scandal Just Keeps Getting Bigger

Friday, March 10, 2006

On Friday, March 10, 2006 the UN Commission on the Status of Women -- the UN's highest body dealing with women's rights -- adopted only one resolution that specifically condemned the abuse of women's rights by any of the 191 UN member states. That state was Israel.

There was no resolution on Saudi Arabia and the million female migrant workers living in slave-like conditions there. There was no mention of Jordan, home to the phenomenon of "honor killings" -- the alleged entitlement to murder female relatives. Nothing on China, land of forced abortions and sterilizations. Nothing on Mali's appalling record on female genital mutilation. No mention of Palestinian women who volunteer to be suicide bombers in order to kill Jews. And of course, no mention of the Israeli women and girls who are their victims.

The Commission on the Status of Women makes it abundantly clear that the victims of the UN's obsession with demonizing the Jewish state go far beyond Israelis. They are the billions of women around the world who cannot garner the attention of this organization because it is otherwise occupied.