Iran: champion of women’s rights?

The UN’s top women’s rights body is getting a new member: Iran.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council elected Iran to the Commission on the Status of Women last week. The vote was a landslide: 43 of the council’s 54 members voted for Iran.

It is ludicrous that Iran, of all countries, has been elevated to this body. If nothing else, Iran’s treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe gives an indication of its attitude towards women. This week, she was sentenced to another year in prison, after being accused of propaganda against the government.

The Iranian regime is extremely misogynistic. Recently, three Iranian women were handed a combined prison sentence of 30 years for daring to hold a public protest against the hijab.

Astonishingly, Saudi Arabia also sits on the women’s rights commission, despite only making it legal for women to drive three years ago.

These UN bodies have no credibility. Russia is a member of the UN’s Human Rights Council, even though the Russian government regularly tramples on its citizens’ democratic rights and opponents of the regime end up in jail.

Allowing Iran – a country that treats women as second-class citizens – to a body dedicated to women is absurd. It is hard to think of any candidates that would be less appropriate.

This all makes it clearer than ever that the UN is not fit for purpose.