HRC47: Oral Statement during ID with the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls

Item 3:Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls

Organisation:Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker: Claire Denman

Thank you Madame President,

CSW thanks the Working Group for their continued work and report.

As the Working Group points out, crises can exact a disparate and heavy toll on the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls.

In China, violations of these rights are currently taking place within the context of the human rights crisis in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

There is a wealth of evidence to support allegations of what amounts to a wholesale attack on the culture and religion of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and members of other ethnic groups in the region.

One particularly concerning aspect of the crisis is testimony from witnesses and survivors that indicates that Uyghur women and girls have been subjected to forced sterilisation and birth control, as well as rape and sexual violence while arbitrarily detained in the region’s so-called re-education camps. We further note the Chinese Communist Party’s long history of forced birth control including forced abortion affecting women across the country.

We call on the Chinese Communist Party to put an end to the violations in XUAR immediately, and to abolish and end the use of re-education camps.

We also share the Working Group’s concerns about the widespread impunity for violations of the sexual and reproductive health rights of women and girls.

In the case of human rights violations in the Uyghur region, the international community has not taken sufficient action to hold perpetrators to account.

Statements, targeted sanctions and calls for action are welcome, but the time to implement an independent investigative mechanism and to hold those responsible for these violations to account is long overdue.

We call on Member States to support all available means of investigation into violations of the sexual and reproductive health rights and other human rights abuses in China.

Thank you