UN Authority Figures

UN Women, Executive Board President: United Arab Emirates

Hundreds of women, some of them pregnant or domestic servants who are victims of rape, are being imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates every year under laws that outlaw consensual sex outside marriage.
Source: The Guardian, October 26, 2015

Mission of the UN Women: "The main roles of UN Women are: To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms; To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society; To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress." (UN Women website)

Term of office: 2016-2018; reelected for one year term in 2019 (President 2017)

United Arab Emirates' Record on Women's rights:
"he penal code does not address spousal rape. The penal code allows men to use physical means, including violence, at their discretion against female and minor family members. ...In general the government did not enforce domestic abuse laws effectively, and domestic abuse against women, including spousal abuse, remained a problem. There were reports employers raped or sexually assaulted foreign domestic workers. These cases rarely went to court, and those that did had few convictions. In sharia courts, which are primarily responsible for civil matters between Muslims, the extremely high burden of proof for a rape case contributed to a low conviction rate. Additionally, female victims of rape or other sexual crimes faced the possibility of prosecution for consensual sex instead of receiving assistance from authorities... Women faced legal and economic discrimination. The government's interpretation of sharia applies in personal status cases and family law. The law forbids Muslim women to marry non-Muslims. Unlike men, female citizens married to noncitizens do not automatically pass citizenship to their children... The law permits a man to have as many as four wives. Women normally inherit less than men under the government's interpretation of sharia. A son may inherit double what a daughter inherits when their parent dies. For a woman to obtain a divorce with a financial settlement, she must prove her husband inflicted physical or moral harm upon her, abandoned her for at least three months, or had not maintained her upkeep or that of their children. Alternatively, women may divorce by paying compensation or surrendering their dowry to their husbands. .. Sex outside of marriage is a crime, and the government may imprison and deport noncitizen women if they bear children out of wedlock."
(U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights 2015, United Arab Emirates)

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