The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (“Committee”) is going to review Hong Kong’s implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (“Convention”) on 12 May 2023. Hong Kong Centre for Human Rights (“HKCHR”) submitted a parallel report to the Committee yesterday (11 April) which illustrated the actual human rights situation in Hong Kong in detail.
We hope that the report could assist the Committee to understand the difficulties and threats faced by Hong Kong women when they are exercising their human rights. We urge the Committee to express concerns over the deteriorating human rights situations in Hong Kong, and demand the Hong Kong government to cease violating human rights and take remedial actions immediately.
Our submission pointed out that, during the reporting period (2014-2023), the main threats to the enjoyment of rights for all in Hong Kong, including women, are the systematic suppression of freedoms, obstruction to participation in political and public life, erosion of the rule of law and other institutional safeguards of human rights. Key points are as follows:
(1) The Committee is urged to pay attention to the suppression of the civil society and basic freedoms in Hong Kong following the imposition of the National Security Law (“NSL”), which affect women human rights defenders, women’s NGOs and women rights groups.
(2) There is no progress regarding establishing an national human rights institution or strengthening existing institutions such as the Equal Opportunities Commission.
(3) The police, as the main law-enforcement in Hong Kong, fails to protect women and girls, and even perpetrate violations with impunity, both in the context of policing of protests and otherwise. The ineffectiveness of the police monitoring mechanism has furthered deteriorated.
(4) The government failed to assess and mitigate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s anti-pandemic measures on women, especially in the areas of domestic violence and care-giving responsibilities.
(5) This submission also provides updates about migrant domestic workers, especially during the pandemic, women in detention, and LBTI discrimination.
The Spokesperson of HKCHR said today:
“We hope that the report could assist the Committee to understand the actual human right situation in Hong Kong. We urge the Committee to express concerns over the deteriorating human rights situation in Hong Kong, and demand the Hong Kong Government to cease violating human rights and take remedial actions immediately. As to the adverse effect of the NSL on women rights, the Chinese and Hong Kong government should take step to repeal the NSL in accordance with the recommendations by the Human Rights Committee in July 2022.”
“It should also be noted that among the 18 NGOs that submitted reports to the Committee and agreed to publish the reports on the UN website, 15 (or 78%) of them are pro-Beijing or have a strong pro-establishment background. Only three (or 22%) of them are truly independent organizations having no ties with the government. Although the number of independent organizations may in fact be more than three (because some of them may have asked the UN not to make their reports public due to security concerns), the above figures have already reflected a worrying trend. We must emphasize that the intent of the civil reporting mechanism is to invite civil society groups to reflect the true situation of Hong Kong as opposed to the government’s narratives. The government can already give a detailed account of its position through regular reports and attendance at meetings, etc. The government should not use the pro-Beijing NGOs to submit similar information in an attempt to create a false impression of the public opinion.”
Link to our submission:
https://hkchr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/HKCHR-Submission-to-CEDAW-2023.pdf