The Russian Federation was pleased to report to the U.N.’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee that, for the first time in decades, the Russian birth rate now exceeds their abortion rate—a change that should be acknowledged and praised. But instead the Russian delegation was dished a chastisement from the 23 “independent” U.N. experts who are charged with reviewing their country’s efforts toward achieving “women’s rights.”
According to our friends at Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam), “the committee expressed concern that the government was promoting motherhood and women being able to stay at home with their newborn children, instead of facilitating their quick return to the workforce. The Cuban expert warned of the negative sexual stereotypes that could result if women were only seen as ‘good mothers, good wives, and caretakers, while men were seen as the economic providers.’”
In another remarkable piece of news, the Russians also informed the CEDAW committee that the “declining number of abortions was also decreasing women’s mortality rates after birth or abortion.” Once again the Committee was not impressed, even though 100s of millions of dollars are spent worldwide to lower maternal mortality rates.
*Here are a few other examples of “counsel” coming from the CEDAW Compliance Committee experts:
- One expert lamented that access to “transgender medical services” were not available in many regions of Russia, and called on the nation to ensure that “women’s sexual and reproductive rights were based on scientific evidence and not on religion.”
- Fiji was taken to task for not making marriage and reproductive technologies available to same-sex couples. The Thailand expert inquired of Fiji if the decriminalization of prostitution for adult sex workers could be proposed.
- Albania was asked, “What is the government doing to fight homophobia and violence against gays, lesbians, and transsexuals?”
The CEDAW Compliance Committee gets together to work their mischief a couple of times a year and each country that is a signator to the treaty is required to be reviewed every four years.
*A big “thank you” to C-Fam for reporting on these meetings.