By Sharanya Gopinathan
The folks at UN Watch have been mighty angry over the election of Saudi Arabia to the UN Women’s Rights Commission. Hillel Neuer, the Executive Director of UN Watch, said many things on the matter, including posting these two tweets:
https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/855970430628376576
The move has spawned headlines that contain phrases like “no joke” and “one for Ripley’s“, which reflect how disbelieving and horrified people are that a country with such a famously poor record on women’s rights has been elected to a global women’s rights organisation.
It’s also caused outrage amongst women across the Arab world, with many taking to Twitter to express their feelings.
https://twitter.com/LunaSafwan/status/856148335937323008
https://twitter.com/khuludAu/status/856088732893564929
The UN Women’s Rights Commission works in “promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Is it wrong to say that we don’t want Saudi Arabia to have anything to do with shaping global standards on gender equality? It’s the only country in the world where women are legally barred from driving, it still has a controversial “male guardian system” in place for women, it recently launched a Girls Council with only men on stage and also arrested a woman for posting a photo of herself without an abaaya on social media.
According to the UN Watch’s calculations, examining the data available on this controversial election reveals that five members of the EU voted for this move. Since it took place through a secret ballot, no one can’t be sure which. UN Watch was quite outraged by this, and about the fact that the mainstream media has been loathe to touch this story. Whisperings on social media indicate that it’s out of a fear of appearing Islamophobic, and of upsetting a major oil supplier.