UN Authority Figures

UN Women, Executive Board: Bahrain

More than 260 women in Bahrain have come forward in just three weeks to say that they have experienced some form of domestic violence, revealing that even employed and educated women are abused financially, physically and emotionally.
Source: Gulf Daily News, September 23, 2015

Mission of the UN Women: "The main roles of UN Women are: To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms; To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society; To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress." (UN Women website)

Term of office: 2017-2019

Bahrain's Record on Women's rights:
"The law does not address spousal rape... There were reports of instances in which employers allegedly raped female domestic workers, but the victim did not seek legal redress, since victims cannot prove guilt in court without the testimony of witnesses to the crime... No government policies or laws explicitly address domestic violence. Human rights organizations alleged spousal abuse of women was widespread... 30 percent of women face some form of domestic abuse. Women rarely sought legal redress for violence due to fear of social reprisal or stigma. Authorities devoted little public attention to the problem... Victims of domestic violence had difficulty knowing who to contact or how to proceed when filing a complaint. Procedures required interviews of both the victim and the accused at the same police station; there were no provisions in place to prevent accused family members from having access to their victims... the penal code provides a lenient sentence for the killing of a spouse caught in the act of adultery..."
(U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights 2015, Bahrain)

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