The Kurdish Commission for Human Rights (Ar-Rasid”) has published a report on the state of human rights in Syria for the month of April 2009. However, this report, like a great number of reports on human rights in Syria, omits any mention of the situation of women and children and the disabled, and contents itself with a passing reference to the prohibition of “Women’s Day” festivities this year in Qamishle!
The report does not delve into the issue of “honor crimes” which afflicts every group and region of Syrian society, neither does it take up any of the issues of violence or custody rights or divorce settlement or the denial of Syrian women’s rights to pass on citizenship to her children.
Nor does the report deal with the absence of women in positions of leadership in Syrian parties and commissions of every kind.
The same applies to children, as the report fails to delve into the pervasiveness of child labor, which is considered “normal” in the regions of Qamishle and Hasaka, and indeed in all of Syria. Nor does it address the issue of entrenched violence against children, whether domestic violence or violence in schools or from the community. In particular the report does not consider underage marriage, so widespread in the regions of Qamishle and Hasaka.
The report likewise fails to mention the current discrimination against the disabled, whether in terms of their direct or indirect exclusion from education, or in terms of job opportunities, in addition to the communal discrimination by which the disabled are treated with a kind of pity and considered “inferior” to others.
By pointing out these failings, we contend that the rights of women and children and the disabled are a basic, inextricable part of human rights, and that they deserve the complete attention of human rights reports on par with other issues. Likewise, these reports should not be limited only to the government’s responsibility for the lack of human rights, but rather they must also address the various violations that occur on the social, economic, religious, and party level.
By: Bassam AlKadi, 13/4/2009, (Report by “Ar-Rasid” for the month of April: ignoring government, party, and community violations of the rights of women and children and the disabled)
Translated by: Tyler Golson
source in Arabic..