In April, 2010, the United Nations voted to seat Iran as a delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women for the 2011-2015 term. Iran took its seat yesterday.
According to the Commission's mission statement, it "is dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. It is the principal global policy-making body. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide."
According to Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian political science professor, "Iranian judges can, and do, sentence women to death by stoning for alleged adultery. And according to the State Department's latest report: "Spousal rape is not illegal... Rape:...according to the penal code...four male witnesses or three men and two women are required for conviction...A man may escape punishment for killing a wife caught in the act of adultery if he is certain she was a consenting partner...[I]n 2008 50 honor killings were reported during a seven-month period...The punishment for perpetrators was often a short prison sentence...A woman has the right to divorce only if her husband signs a contract granting that right, cannot provide for his family, or is a drug addict, insane, or impotent. A husband was not required to cite a reason for divorcing his wife...The testimony of two women is equal to that of one man..."
The U.N. has a history of putting on councils miscreant nations that make a farce of what those councils purport to do, presumably in the service of multiculturalism.
How can anyone take the U.N. seriously? And why should the U.S. continue to support it? From what I've read, the U.S. did not oppose the seatiing of Iran on a council that allegedly promotes equality for women. How can that be? And why aren't feminist groups raising hell about it?
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