News
Thursday, October 28, 2010
UN bodies urge Pakistan to prevent ‘victimisation’ in flood relief* Three UN human rights bodies call on Islamabad to ensure that women, minorities and disabled are spared ‘further victimisation’ during recovery from devastating floods
GENEVA: Three UN human rights bodies on Wednesday called on Pakistan to ensure that women, minorities and the disabled were spared from “further victimisation” during the recovery from devastating floods.
“The floods have disproportionately affected them,” they said in a joint statement.
“Members of minority communities, Afghan refugees, women, children and persons with disabilities, particularly those living in rural areas, were already among the most vulnerable in Pakistani society.” The statement called on Pakistani authorities “to strengthen the human rights-based approach of their efforts, in order to prevent further victimisation of the most vulnerable population.” The committee on children’s rights, the committee on the elimination of discrimination against women, and the committee on the rights of the disabled, underlined that 85 percent of those displaced by the floods were women and children, including half a million pregnant women.
They suffer with the destruction of health centres and need protection from sexual and physical abuse, while women and girls needed help to overcome any constraints they face in reaching aid and basic services, including cultural barriers, the UN rights bodies said.
Meanwhile, the disabled “are often a part of society that is kept invisible, even under normal circumstances and more so in times of emergency,” they added, and need urgent relocation from flood-hit areas. At least seven million people were still without shelter in Pakistan nearly three months after the floods devastated huge swathes of the country, according to the UN. afp
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk