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Lance Finamore, Chair
The United Nations Human Rights Council is a forty seven member body of the United Nations. It was established in 2006 to address human rights violations and to remedy the past problems of the Commission on Human Rights. The two topics that will be discussed are Women's Property Rights Violations in Kenya and the Humanitarian Crisis in Sri Lanka.
I. Women's Property Rights Violations in Kenya
Women all around the world lead a life that still is not equal in stature to their male counterparts. Women from all around the world suffer abuses of their equal rights to own, inherit, manage, and dispose of property. Violations such as these are degrading and discriminatory. Violations can also become a deadly matter for some women in certain parts of the world. Women's property rights being violated are of great concern to the Human Rights Council. When a woman's property rights are violated, women end up impoverished, struggle to meet family needs, and become vulnerable to violence and disease. In Kenya, women's property rights are extremely unequal to those of their male counterparts. Women in Kenya make up about eighty percent of the agricultural work force and provide sixty percent of the farm income. With such high numbers of women involved in physical labor, it’s very surprising to see that women own only five percent of the land in Kenya.
Violations of women's property rights throughout Africa vary in their severity and pervasiveness. Women's property rights violations are multiplied because of the threat of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, fifty eight percent of HIV/AIDS infections are contracted by women. Basic cultural standards in this region also contribute to violations as it is a cultural standard to exclude women from inheriting land. Being stripped of their landed possessions frequently forces women to turn to prostitution in an effort to earn enough money to be able to keep their land. This series of events occur simply because they are women. Other cultural practices are inherently discriminatory in nature as well. These include divorced women being extradited from their homes with only the clothes on their back and the inability of married women to have any voice regarding jointly owned property. Married women attempting to prevent their husbands from selling jointly owned land will often be beaten, raped or ostracized. In Kenya, five specific violations of women’s rights can be identified:
• Limited Inheritance from Husbands: If a woman's husband dies, many widows are excluded from inheriting her husband’s land. When husbands die, the woman's in-laws stand to gain the most and often evict the women from their homes and land. Women are stripped of their homes, and most importantly their property.
• Harsh Customary Practices: In some areas, very grotesque customary practices are carried out after a women's husband has died. Many widows are inherited by the husband's relatives as their new wife. This inheritance practice includes a ritual called a "cleansing" where the widow engages in un-protected sexual intercourse with a social outcast.
• Unequal Inheritance from Parents: Women rarely receive inheritance from their parents that their brothers often gain. It’s expected of women to find a husband and gain his family and inheritance and not rely on the woman's parents any longer.
• Unequal Division of Property upon Divorce or Separation: Divorce and separation are treated very differently in Kenya than in some parts of the world. After a divorce or separation, husbands often expel their wives from their homes and property with little more than the clothes on their back.
• Married Women's Lack of Control over Property: In Kenya, men are almost always the registered landowners who hold the titles and deeds. Women have no legal option to stop their husbands from selling family land. Women have no rights when or if their husbands sell family land and property.
The overwhelming factor in violations lay in the cultural customs as a whole in the sub-Saharan region. Discriminatory laws and customs, biased attitudes, unresponsive authorities and ineffective courts are amongst some of the reasons why violations are so common. Social stigmas contribute greatly to the problem at hand. Many women fear being labeled "greedy" or a "traitor of custom" if they assert their property rights. Five key areas exist in Kenya that are identified as greatly contributing to the continuation of violations against women’s property rights:
• Discriminatory Laws and Customs: Although Kenya's constitution outlaws discrimination on the basis of sex, it overlooks discrimination in personal customary laws. Many laws and acts within the constitution have clauses banning discrimination but it is easy for husbands to disregard these clauses. In addition, customary laws based on gender give men greater rights than women over property.
• Biased Attitudes: Many Kenyan officials and leaders are biased against women. Many believe that women do not deserve equal property rights and that women are untrustworthy as a whole. It can even be said that many think of women as just a piece of property owned by her husband.
• Unresponsive Government and Traditional Authorities: Kenyan authorities often turn women away who claim to have property violations. Authorities often claim that such family problems are not of high concern to them. The Kenyan Government admits that observing women's property rights is not regarded as a priority.
• Ineffective Courts: Both women and lawyers complain that Kenya's court system is biased against women. Many discriminating factors of the courts lead women to have an unfair chance in the Kenyan legal system. There is a Family Division of the High Court, but it is located in Nairobi, making it difficult for many women to make the trip for a court case.
• Uninformed and Unaware Women: A large problem women face is the fact that they do not know of legal rights that they possess. Women do have property rights, but women are uniformed and unaware of what exact rights they possess. Women are unaware that they have legal property rights, and many do not know how to enforce them. This leads to many women not realizing how expensive pursuing property claims can be to them if they start a legal case. As mentioned before, traveling to Nairobi for a court case is very expensive for women on a farm hundreds or even thousands of miles away. If women became more away for their legal rights, there would be greater success in legal cases.
Women's property rights violations affect not only women, but also development and the war against HIV/AIDS. Gender inequality impairs development in an entire region. Insecure property rights of women affect agricultural production, which can lead to food shortages, unemployment and rural poverty. Property rights violations also lead to an increase in vulnerability to HIV infection in women.
Key Ideas
What should the HRC and other bodies do to combat these violations?
Are women seeking equal property rights interfering with cultural customs?
What should governments do to fix violations of women's property rights?
How can you increase the respect of women’s rights without disregarding the customs of various cultures?
II. Humanitarian Crisis in Sri Lanka
In 2006, the Sri Lankan government and opposition Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) undertook military operations for the first time since an agreed ceasefire in 2002. Upon these military actions by both groups, serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law have occurred. Massive displacements of Tamil and Muslim populations in the north and east of Sri Lanka have taken place. The situation in Sri Lanka is very unique in that both parties are accused for violations against civilians. Government forces were accused for several civilian massacres, bombings, and taking children to use as soldiers. The LTTE were also accused for attacks on civilians, and targeting children for recruitment into their forces. Both sides have disregarded safety of civilians, and interfered with relief assistance by humanitarian agencies. In late 2006, government forces and other armed groups were accused for the disappearances of Tamils in the north and east, and in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Government investigations of serious abuses failed and produced no successful prosecutions.
Violations of International Humanitarian Law were present throughout 2006. Military operations between the Sri Lankan government and LTTE forces put civilians at major risk during the year. Some violations by both sides include indiscriminate attacks and summary executions that result in preventable civilian deaths and injuries. The Sri Lankan government is accused of indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombing with disregard to civilian safety. LTTE forces are accused of suicide bombings and the use of landmines against civilians. Both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE forces are most likely accountable of many Humanitarian Law violations.
Politically motivated killings and abductions have been ever present since 2006. Many instances of political attacks have been committed in Sri Lanka since 2002. In 2006, Sri Lankan security forces are accused of many killings. Security forces allegedly executed five Tamil students in Trincomalee on January 2nd and on June 17th, five Tamil fishermen were executed. Abductions by security forces and other armed groups associated with the government are thought to occur in the second half of the year. LTTE are also accused of many politically motivated killings since the ceasefire of 2002. LTTE has been accused of more than 200 killings since the ceasefire. LTTE mostly targets Tamils viewed as political opposition. LTTE forces allegedly killed eight Sinhalese men, while they worked in paddy fields outside a village in Trincomalee in April 2006. An LTTE car bombing on August 8 in Colombo killed a bodyguard and a three year old child. On August 12th, LTTE gunmen killed Kethesh Loganathan, at his home in Colombo. Loganathan was a highly respected Tamil deputy head of the government’s Peace Secretariat. Both the Sri Lankan government and LTTE forces are in the middle of a lot of politically motivated killings.
Another large problem with the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka is aid not reaching those in need. In 2006, neither the government nor the LTTE went out of their way to give those in need humanitarian relief. There were an estimated 240,000 refugees and others who required assistance who were in desperate need of humanitarian aid. Government official’s efforts in providing aid were appalling. The Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense placed new visa requirements on foreign staff working in the north and east and also in LTTE-controlled areas. Humanitarian aid workers from local and international NGOs have faced increasing threats from their work. Violence for aid workers was commonplace in the north and east of Sri Lanka. August 5th marked a horrific event as seventeen Sri Lankan aid workers from the organization Action Against Hunger were killed, allegedly by government security forces. Humanitarian aid workers were shocked by the lack of government investigation of the execution-style killings of the seventeen slain aid workers.
The greatest concern is the fact that perpetrators go virtually unpunished and there is little accountability for humanitarian violations in Sri Lanka. The government has failed to conduct successful investigations of alleged rights violations by government security forces. These investigations rarely lead to prosecution of a case. Even more rarely do these investigations result in a conviction. The government has failed to provide adequate witness protection to encourage witnesses to come forward without fear of being threatened or harassed by government security forces. President Mahinda Rajapakse has seriously made Sri Lanka a place of great humanitarian concern.
Key Ideas
What should the HRC and other bodies do to combat these violations?
Why have the humanitarian violations in Sri Lanka gone on for so long without any action by the United Nations?
Does the Sri Lankan Government have discriminatory practices against Tamils?
Do Tamils have a right under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to have
an autonomous nation?
Is it fair that Sinhalese ethnics have preferential admission to Sri Lankan schools of higher education?