Pillay appreciates moves to improve human rights

Manama: The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Monday said that she believed there was an "encouraging level of governmental activity to improve human rights" in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, mainly in the areas of economic and social rights, children's rights and human trafficking.

However, there was also "an array of continuing concerns about women's rights, migration, statelessness, and freedom of expression, association and assembly," Pillay said in a speech at the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the start of a 10-day six-country mission intended to improve cooperation between the GCC states and the UN human rights system.

The High Commissioner said that her visit was coming at "a crucial time for human rights advancement" in the region, and said she was pleased to note "the active and constructive engagement" of GCC states and civil society in the new Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, under which all 192 UN Member States have their human rights record assessed once every four years by the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Four GCC countries, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have already been through the process, with Kuwait's review scheduled for next month and Oman's in 2011.

The GCC states had received, during the UPR sessions, recommendations focusing on four concerns in particular: women's rights, migration, statelessness, and freedom of expression, association and assembly, Pillay said.

"Education, including higher studies, is available to an ever-increasing number of women in the region. Investing in education, including education for women, is not only fair, but it is also smart policy," the High Commissioner told students and faculty at the King Abdullah University, a new coeducational university in Saudi Arabia.

Progress has also been achieved in other areas, she said.

"Some members states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference have modified their laws with respect to women's rights, including marriage, divorce and public participation. This approach was due to dynamic interpretations of Islamic traditions on the part of governments and jurists who, I am informed, demonstrated that far from being innovations, such legislation was compatible with Islamic jurisprudence and, indeed, stemmed from it."

Pillay hailed the fact that women now have the right to vote and have access to public office in several GCC countries.

However, she said that women were still unable to fully enjoy their human rights all across the region.

"Discriminatory barriers continue to hamper women's right to shape their own lives and choices, and fully participate in public life," she said. "These barriers must be removed. It is also time to put to rest the concept of male guardianship… Positive developments for women's civil and political rights are still patchy and uneven in the region."

Pillay said she was encouraged to see that more states in the region have adopted, or are enacting, laws to combat human trafficking.

Pointing to the important role migrant workers play in making society function, Pillay expressed concern about their treatment, which, she said, reflected problems facing migrants elsewhere in the world.

The High Commissioner thanked the countries in the region for providing substantial amounts of humanitarian aid through the United Nations in times of emergency, for example at the height of the recent food crisis, as well as in response to epidemics and natural disasters.