On Tuesday, The United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) selected the Islamic Republic of Iran to sit on its Commission on the status of Women, an intergovernmental body “dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” The selection of Iran to a commission that promotes the right of females has drawn the ire of many who object to the Islamic Republic’s subjugation of women throughout the years.
As recently as last month, Iran’s poor treatment of women — and humans in general — drew the attention of the UN Human Rights Council. Javaid Rehman, an attorney who acts as the Special Rapportuer on human rights in Iran for the Human Rights Council, outlined the situation.
While noting some improvement for Iranian women in education and citizenship rights, Rehman also remarked that “egregious gender discrimination persists in law, practice and societal attitudes, disempowering women and girls from participating and contributing in society.”
Chiefly on Rehman’s mind was the issue of child marriages, which is still practiced in the country.
“It is unacceptable that Iranian law sets the marriage age for girls as low as 13, and allows girls even younger to marry with paternal and judicial consent.”
According to Rehman, between March and September of last year, more than 16,000 marriages were registered in Iran involving girls from 10-14 years of age.
In Iran, women still need a father’s or a husband’s permission to do things such as obtain a bank account or acquire a driver’s license.
So, of course the United Nations would reward such behavior with a seat on a commission dedicated to “gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
Women’s rights champions from around the world were outraged by the announcement.
Austria-based human rights activist Sholeh Zamini called the ECOSOC’s selection of Iran to be on the women’s commission “shameful,” and lamented that Iran will be the only country on the commission not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. “Not only has Iran not done this, but it is acting quite systematically to violate women’s rights.”
Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad blasted ECOSOC as well: “This is surreal. A regime that treats women as 2nd class citizens, jails them for not wearing compulsory hijab, bans them from singing, bars them from stadiums & doesn’t let them travel abroad without the permission of their husband gets elected to UN’s top women’s rights body.”
Alinejad then issued a tweet that really speaks for itself:
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, was even more blunt: “Electing the Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town’s fire chief,” Neuer said. “It’s absurd — and morally reprehensible. This is a black day for women’s rights, and for all human rights.”
UN Watch also noted that since there are 54 members on the ECOSOC and Iran received all but 11 votes for inclusion on the women’s commission, at least four so-called “Western democracies” voted for the Islamic state.
The United States used its authority to call for a vote on the matter, which is often just rubber stamped based on the nominations of the regional groups — although it’s not known how the Biden appointee voted on the matter as it was a secret ballot.
“I commend the Biden administration for forcing the vote, but they should also speak out to condemn the obscene election of Ayatollah Khamemei’s regime to a women’s rights body,” Neuer said.
Readers of The New American are well aware that the United Nations is a corrupt, unnecessary and often evil cabal of globalists, socialists and communists that the United States should fully renounce and expel from its shores as soon as humanly possible.
And decisions such as this one show that they’re also just ridiculous.
