The Hypocrisy of the United Nations
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the United Nations and what can only be described as its increasingly outrageous actions on the world stage. How else would you describe planning a conference on gender equality, feminism, and sexual violence that invited only men to participate? or telling the Catholic Church that its pro-life stance equals psychological torture?
Well, last week, the United Nations really went off the deep end when its Commission on the Status of Women adopted a resolution that singles out and condemns Israel for violating the rights of women. That's right. This Commission condemned a country that has guaranteed women equality in work, education, health, and social welfare for more than 60 years. It denounced a country where rape, including spousal rape, is a felony punishable by 16 years in prison, whose Ministry of Social Affairs operates battered women's shelters and a hotline for reporting abuse and whose parliament passed nearly 50 initiatives to promote gender equality and empower women over the past 4 years. It accused the only country in the Middle East that fully respects the rights of women with violating the rights of women.
To say I wholeheartedly disagree with this fiction the U.N. has concocted would be an understatement. Let's look at the facts.
On its Web site, the Commission lists selected grim statistics for the status of women in the world: They inform us that one in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence; they let us know that 120 million girls have been forced into intercourse or other sexual acts at some point in their lives; and they tell us 133 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation.
When you consider those numbers, it is mind-boggling that the Commission believes that Israel is the only one of the 193 U.N. member states worthy of condemnation for its record on women's rights. How is that even possible? Israel's entire population is less than 10 million.
According to the World Health Organization, nearly 40 percent of all murders of women worldwide are carried out by an intimate partner. Yet dozens of countries around the world do not have specific laws against domestic violence. Where is the Commission's condemnation of Russia and Kenya? of Burkina Faso and Pakistan? of Congo and Lesotho? of Niger?
Why didn't the Commission cite Sudan, where the legal age of marriage for girls is 10 years old and 88 percent of women under 50 have undergone female genital mutilation?
Why didn't the Commission condemn Iran, where a woman's testimony is only worth half of a man's in court, and rape within marriage is not recognized as a criminal offense?
Where is the censure of India, where statistics show a rape occurs every 22 minutes? Why didn't the Commission want to talk about the victims in that country, who include a nun in her seventies who was gang-raped by a group of bandits when she tried to prevent them from committing a robbery in a Christian missionary school, as well as two teenaged cousins from a low caste who didn't have a toilet in their home and were raped, strangled, and found hanging from a tree because they went outside to relieve themselves during the night.
Why aren't these countries worthy of the same denunciation? You might be surprised to learn they all sit on the Commission on the Status of Women. That's right. Some of the world worst violators of women's rights sit on a commission that calls itself ``the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.''
It is clear from the facts that this single-minded attack is just the latest salvo in the U.N.'s never-ending anti-Israeli agenda, and it is time we stand up for our friend and ally.
As a founding member of the U.N. and a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, United States has a duty to insist on a higher standard. The status quo is simply unacceptable.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source