The hostile amendments to that UN resolution on protecting the defenders of women’s rights did a lot of damage, as a matter of fact.
African nations, the Vatican, Iran, Russia, China and conservative Muslim states had sought to weaken the resolution passed by the assembly’s human rights committee, diplomats and activists said.
…
Fraught negotiations were held over the text.
African countries had insisted on highlighting respect for customs and traditions. Russia, Iran and China had called for language which insisted the rights defenders should follow national laws, diplomats and activists said.
In the end Norway agreed to delete a paragraph which said states should “strongly condemn all forms of violence against women and women human rights defenders and refrain from invoking any customs, traditions or religious consideration to avoid their obligations.”
African nations in turn withdrew a proposed amendment which said human rights defenders had to fall in line with “local situations,” diplomats said.
That’s pretty horrifying. More than 30 European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, backed out of the whole deal because of it.
The Vatican led opponents to references in the draft to the risks faced by those working on sexual and reproductive health and gender rights, activists who monitored the talks said.
Rights groups said the UN committee should have stood firm against the changes.
Women human rights defenders often “challenge traditional religious and cultural values and practices which subordinate, stigmatise or restrict women” when they take up gender and sexual rights, said Eleanor Openshaw of the International Service for Human Rights.
I’m so sick of Team No to Women’s Rights.
What is WRONG with you, Norway?! Diplomacy has its uses, but there are some things that civilized peoples just do not negotiate. Accepting systemic violence against women as part of some cultural tradition is wrong, full stop. There is absolutely nothing worth gaining that could explain that kind of acceptance.
I know this is preaching to the choir, but yeesh. Of all the countries that might cave in on something like this, one of that last that I would expect would be a supposedly enlightened scandanavian one. Multiculturalism is great, respecting culture and tradition is great, but passively accepting gender discrimination–much less outright violence–is… it’s… oh, bollocks. I just don’t have a vehement enough corpus of words to use.
@MrFancyPants
You shouldn’t idealise Norway. Last time I looked around Norway still had no laws that forbid rape within the marriage.
Funnily enough my column finally went up today – dealing with much the same thing.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2013/12/05/sexism-religion-and-culture
The gist of it being when we talk about human rights, religion, culture and traditions are precisely the problem.
“Customs and traditions” was the exact same argument used by the Confederation to defend slavery. Imagine what would have happened if the Union had caved.
The human rights of half of humanity are negotiable.
Boggling. Just boggling.
Unless, of course, plenty of people think they’re not really human.
Axxyaan:
Wikipedia proposes that you haven’t looked since ’71.
Still, one shouldn’t idealise any nation.
Well this article suggest that what I saw needn’t have been that long ago: http://www.mommyish.com/2011/10/25/women-abuse-norway-marital-rape-study-563/
And then we get to what I’m guessing is that article’s source, this New York Times article which states:
Emphasis mine.
It continues:
The problem seems to be that removing exemptions for husbands is not enough for having an effective policy against marital rape. Not if you live in a society that somehow regards marital rape as a contradiction in terms or as a taboo. In that case you need an explicit mention of marital rape in law as an important signal or at least a serious public campaign to raise awareness. Not only to society at large but also to the police and procecutors that this is something they should treat seriously.
Be that as it may, it is an argument that is completely different from
You are right my statement was wrong as written. I apologize for that.
Now, misunderstand me right. If we have a law that is underutilised we should complain about it. If the reason for it is cultural we should assault that culture with all we have. But our attacks should be well aimed to ensure that they are not easily dismissed, if for no other reason.
So saying “Marital rape is legal in Norway” is a bad idea because it’s not true, so it needn’t be confronted. Saying “Marital rape isn’t prosecuted in Norway as it should be according to the law” may or may not be true, but it can’t be dismissed by a simple reference to the lawbook, but rather it must be taken aboard as a serious argument.
Now, looking at my first response I phrased it unnecessarily antagonistic, which was poorly done by me. I should have done better, and I apologize for failing to do so.