GENEVA: The new United Nations rights chief voiced deep concerns on Wednesday (Nov 2) over a swelling “pushback” on women’s rights across much of the world.
During his first press conference as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk said he was deeply worried to see rises in misogynistic attitudes and efforts to reverse the rights of women and girls in many countries.
There has been “a real pushback, and that’s very worrying and it affects women and girls in many parts of the world in a way that is unparallelled”, he told reporters.
Turk, who became the UN rights chief two weeks ago, did not point to specific country situations.
His comments however came as Iran continues to be rocked by over six weeks of deadly protests following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran over the way she was wearing her headscarf.
Protests are also continuing, albeit on a much smaller scale, in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have issued a slew of restrictions controlling women’s lives since they returned to power in August 2021.
They have also blocked girls from returning to secondary schools and barred women from many government jobs.
Turk meanwhile hinted that there was a much broader trend of pushbacks against women’s rights “both in the global north and in the global south”.
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