St Kitts and Nevis’ human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the second time on Wednesday 11 November 2015 in a meeting that will be webcast live.
St Kitts and Nevis is one of the 14 states to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its session taking place from 2 to 13 November. St Kitts and Nevis’ first review took place on 28 January 2011.
The documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report – information provided by the state under review 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations and civil society groups.
Among the issues raised are: discrimination against women; steps to protect women from domestic violence including sexual harassment and spousal rape; representation of women in leadership positions; the protection of children’s rights and child abuse; measures to ban corporal punishment of children; the increase in crimes and the high murder rate; the persistence of provisions that allowed the death penalty; the debt situation and poverty reduction strategies improvements in the quality of education; the decriminalization of same-sex relations; negative attitudes towards the LGBT community; the need for a national legal framework on migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; and the establishment of a national human rights institution.
The UPR is a unique process which involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN member states. Since its first meeting in April 2008, all 193 UN member states have been reviewed during the first UPR cycle and 140 thus far during the second cycle. The second review of states aims to highlight human rights developments in the country since its first review and provides an opportunity for States under review to spell out steps taken to implement recommendations posed during their first reviews.
The St Kitts and Nevis delegation will be headed by Kaye Bass, permanent secretary, ministry of foreign affairs.
The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of St Kitts and Nevis are: Gabon, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
SOURCE: Caribbean News Now
