Ahead of the expected announcement that Saudi Arabia will be appointed chair of the UN women’s rights forum at the annual meeting of the UN Commission of the Status of Women today, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Advocacy, Sherine Tadros, said:
“The Commission on the Status of Women has a clear mandate to promote women’s rights and gender equality and it is vital for the chair of the commission to uphold this. Saudi Arabia’s abysmal record when it comes to protecting and promoting the rights of women puts a spotlight on the vast gulf between the lived reality for women and girls in Saudi Arabia, and the aspirations of the Commission.
These things are voted on by the member countries. How many of them have regressive theocratic governments?
Indeed. How well do you think this will go?
And again, how do you think it looks? The optics are just sad.
Clearly it’s a shitty move that will harm vulnerable people.
Of course it looks bad, and I’m not trying to excuse it.
Just explaining that it wasn’t some burocratic decision by a cabal of scheming administrators to fuck people over.
This is the actions of specific (mostly threocratic) countries.