Hypocrites and Breeders

The United Nations says Israel is stopping the women of Gaza from reproducing. The three-person Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (plus East Jerusalem, and Israel) has accused Israel of targeting anything to do with maternity. Good points have been made about the recent barrage against Israel and I’d like to add some more. On two counts the report is a mockery: those judging and women now seen as breeders.

The Commission, set up by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 and suddenly worried about women, should look homeward. Several countries on the Council have sorry records: the rights of women, defined by the UN itself in the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,  are steadily violated.

Let’s start with Africa. In Côte d’Ivoire 36% of females are victims of genital mutilation (FGM), a practice done on girls from a few months to teenage. Ethiopia easily tops Côte d’Ivoire’s numbers with 65% while Gambia takes a solid lead at 76%. In Ghana, 2% have been cut while in Kenya the percentage jumps to 15%. Sudan however leads with a whopping 87%. Sadly, the numbers, compiled by UNICEF, which clearly spells out how FGM violates human rights, are recent, March of 2024.

Moving to Asia, a couple of Council members come from places with big FGM numbers. In Maldives, 13% of females have been maimed whereas in Indonesia 49% have undergone the trauma.

The Council’s sudden concern for maternal health is interesting. As Israel is being vilified, blamed for bombing clinics, hospitals and medical supplies, four Council member states rank in the top 20 countries worldwide for maternal mortality: Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Kenya and Democratic Republic of Congo. Even two on the Commission itself, India and South Africa, don’t fare well. Their maternal death rates are higher than the UN’s own sustainable development goal.

But what if you decide not to reproduce? Over in Latin America we can see what happens. Abortion is a woman’s right, says the 1979 treaty, although a few Council members don’t care. In Bolivia, Brazil and Chile, abortion is severely curtailed and a women can be jailed for up to three years for an illegal one, an often unsafe procedure which ups the maternal death rate. In the Dominican Republic, another arbiter of human rights, abortion is completely banned.

What’s more, in the Commission’s document, women come across as breeders. According to the text, their reproductive capacity has been deliberately damaged. Besides the medical facilities, apparently starvation will “irreversibly” affect future procreation. In a bloated list of claims, the lone concern for a woman is her decreased fertility.

In short the report is a sham. Many Council members are in no position to judge Israel and their only regard for a woman is her ability to produce offspring.