LGSMUN 2013, SOCHUM Draft Resolution 1.

GA/3/RES/1.1

LGSMUN 2013 Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Committee (SOCHUM) Treatment of Women and Children in the Arab Spring
Draft Resolution 1.1
Signatories: Bangladesh, Belgium, China, DR Congo, France, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Kingdom and USA. The General Assembly, third committee, the Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Committee, Re-establishing UN agendas A/66/251, A/65/251, A/64/251 and A/64/251, which have provisioned women and child rights, with respect to identifying their fundamental rights and the need to uphold them, Reaffirming that everyone is entitled to a universal order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration can be fully realized, as given under the article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Noting with deep concern the large number of human rights violations occurring in the Arab spring, Reminds the committee that the problems faced by women in the Arab spring are: i) Cases of sexual harassment and rape, ii) Lack of political representation, iii) Lack of infrastructure, iv) An instable government, which fails to provide to the people, v) Lack of food and incompliance of basic human needs, such as shelter, vi) A large number of refugees, that needs to be catered too, vii) Lack of awareness, viii) Lack of educational and recreational facilities, ix) Their subjection to unfair trial, x) A rise in the kidnaps of women, by security forces, xi) Domestic violence, Expresses its appreciation on the integral part women had to play in the Arab spring. Condemns the existence of the patriarchal society as it acts as a suppressor of women in the region and emphasizes the need to work against it, as it; i) Limits the representation of women in society, ii) Women are given lower regard in the community, iii) Women are under constant control of men, dominating the society, iv) Hence, it limits to their right to exercise their own will, Recalling all its relevant resolutions on the protection of and assistance to Internally displaced persons, including its resolutions 62/153 of 18 December 2007 and 64/162 of 18 December 2009, Deeply disturbed by the alarmingly high numbers of internally displaced persons throughout the world, Concerned of the current situation of women in the Arab spring,

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Disturbed by the ill treatment and wrong doings against children in the Arab Spring, Guided by the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and recalling the International Covenants on Human Rights and other relevant human rights instruments, Recognizing the guiding principles on treatment of women and children as the key international framework for the protection and recognition of their rights, Recognizing the sovereignty of member states, the freedom of action within their geographical boundaries and the independence to act as an individual entity in the International community, Further recognizing the right of member states to interact with and investigate the entities that are operating within its jurisdiction, Emphasizing that States have the primary responsibility to provide protection and assistance to internally displaced persons within their jurisdiction, Further emphasizing the significance and need to promote national human rights institutions; Reaffirming that all Member States have an obligation to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms and the duty to fulfill the obligations they have undertaken under the various international instruments in this field, Reaffirming also the principles of neutrality, humanity, impartiality and independence for the provision of humanitarian assistance, Realizing the significance of different UN organs in the establishment and maintenance of political and socio-economic infrastructure in order to safeguard human rights in affected countries, Respecting the mandate of different UN organizations being called upon to assist in the humanitarian assistance; Recognizing the need for efficient registration methodology to enroll IDPs into camps, Realizes the need for an efficient mechanism to channelize and monitor aid which is given for humanitarian purposes, Mindful of the deteriorating health care conditions and the need of improved health care facilities and nursing, Taking into consideration the status of women and organized offenses such as sexual assault against the women, Realizing the need for effective development of education to elevate the living conditions of the children, Recalling resolution 1888, and 65/228 of the UNGA on strengthening crime prevention and criminal justice responses to violence against women,

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Taking into account that States have the obligation to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, including women and girls, and must be given proper attention to prevent and investigate acts of violence against women and girls and punish the perpetrators, and provide protection to the victims, and that failure to do so violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, Determined to effectively implement the laws formed to protect human rights, Realizing the existence of patriarchal society, within these areas, this is detrimental to the status of women in society, Notes that another hindrance that stands in the way of women achieving higher standards of justice is the discriminatory laws that prevails in these regions, such as: i) The favorable conditions of divorce for men, ii) Favorable marital conditions for men, iii) The ability of men to practice polygamy, iv) The practice of forced marriage, Emphasizing the fact that, besides women, children have also faced major human rights violations in these regions, such as, i) Children are forced to carry out warfare, ii) The right of security of children is taken away, iii) They face psychological trauma and mental disturbances, iv) Emotional setbacks, v) Stagnant educational system, vi) Incompliance of basic needs such as food, water and shelter, vii) Injured children, going unaccounted for, viii) Non-existence of a proper infrastructure, ix) Rape and sexual harassment of minors, x) Kidnaps, Aware of the ongoing conflicts in Syria and need to curb them, Recalling also the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in which the fundamental right of every person to be free from hunger is recognized and to attain the basic necessities, 1. Strongly condemns the ongoing violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of women; 2. Calls for the international community to address the deteriorating condition of women throughout the Arab Spring; 3. Calls upon leadership of all states to immediately cease acts of violence against civilians in violation of applicable international humanitarian law and international human rights law; 4. Calls for the development and implementation of appropriate policies among different criminal justice agencies to ensure coordinated, consistent and effective responses to violence perpetrated against women by personnel within such agencies and to ensure that attitudes of

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criminal justice officials that foster, justify or tolerate violence against women are held up to public scrutiny and sanction; 5. Draws attention to the need to increase both, the social and political standing of women, in society. To uplift women socially, due to the fact that it is only after women have been socially recognized, can they move to politics, as a better social environment always caters to the establishment of a better political system, we suggest, i) The media to promote the affirmative action for women, ii) Awareness campaigns to be set up in order to educate women on their basic rights, which we find largely missing, iii) The implementation of door-to-door campaigns, iv) Educational system to include a compulsory course of women rights, v) The need to increase the standard of living, vi) Influencing a change in the ideologies of the society with regards to women participation in social structures of society, 6. Encourages the United Nations Status of Women to emancipate the women rights in the countries affected by the Arab Spring; 7. Reminds the role of the media in establishing better rights: i) Raising awareness in the society, ii) Propagating credible information to keep people informed, iii) The use of print media to establish the basic rights of women, iv) Emphasize the need to curb the objectification of women practiced by the media, v) Establishment of reports on statistical data of the extent of human rights violation; vi) Perception of women in society should change by making the media more socially responsible through advocating women rights in the media, vii) Provision of free newspapers to encourage propagation of information; 8. Condemns hate speech and will not allow hate speech through media, with special regard to religion. 9. Calls for the setup of separate complaint centers for women with female staff only to encourage the reporting of crimes such as sexual assault and rapes: to protect the women from revengeful acts due to reporting of a crime, the identity of the reporter should remain anonymous; 10. Urges for the freedom of media in politically unstable areas to provide accurate information to the civilians and become a source of indirect accountability on behalf of the people to ensure that human rights violations do not occur; 11. Encourages the need to increase the political representation of women through a quota system, which entails: i) Defining quotas as A percentage of seats, allotted to the people in parliament based on their different ethnicities, religion or gender. In this case, quotas for women, ii) The establishment of the quotas system is to provide the platform for women to come into power, which otherwise has not been possible due to societal restrictions, iii) Quotas systems to be only established temporarily, in order to comply to all member nations, iv) The time periods and percentage of the quotas are to be defined by local governments, with condition that a minimum quota be at least 20% considered to be the critical
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minority; 12. Declares accordingly that the establishment of this quota system helps women by: i) Giving them a legal platform to voice their concerns, ii) Ensuring their functional role in productive contribution to society, iii) Recognizing their pivotal efforts in the Arab spring; 13. Draws attention to the requirement of economic empowerment of women, which can be done through: i) Providing equal job opportunities, ii) Paying the same salary to women as men, for similar posts, iii) Encouraging home and cottage industries to promote self-employment of women; 14. Recommends that the implementation of discriminatory laws be challenged, although, we accept that the laws that abide to the Shariah and religious beliefs are not to be invaded, hence, only the implementation of unjust laws be re-established; i) Laws punishing domestic violence and honor killings should be included in legislature of these countries; 15. Recommends that as it is vital to bring these children back to normal conditions, these issues be resolved by: i) Establishing rehabilitation centers, ii) Establishing depression clinics, iii) Establishing orphanages to restrict child recruitment, iv) Establishing educational centers and forming educational programs, as they are integral to children and are a basic rights, v) Provision of food, and other basic necessities of life, vi) Building vocational training camps to deal with trauma, vii) Finding an efficient frame work for the channelization of aid; 16. Recommends that states with lacking funding In reference to the Middle East countries to encourage the involvement of non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International to contribute in the establishment of refugee camps, educational facilities and oversee the process of funding overall considering the economic situation of countries involved in these conflict; 17. Urges that the conditions of detention centers be reviewed with regards to the following implementations: i) Illegal detention centers should be abolished immediately ii) Officials from UNHRC should inspect these detention centers to ensure that human right violations do not take place iii) Female guards should be recruited in the detention centers iv) Juvenile justice systems should be set up that specialize in juvenile justice and allow educational and medical services in the detention centers, v) Release orders to be implemented effectively, vi) Children to be held independent of adult prisoners, vii) Access to family and lawyers to be granted to women, within the detentions centers; 18. Condemns that war crimes that took place in the Arab spring and suggests:
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i)

Fighting impunity of all perpetrators of violence against women by ensuring effective investigations, prosecution and punishment of these crimes, ii) Legislate harsh laws against the perpetrators of sexual acts which act as deterrent iii) Investigations should be independent, impartial and comprehensive; 19. Draws attention to unfair trial laws and further cause for solutions which are to be implemented in the new constitution through a step by step process i) People convicted of the crime are to be given fair trial chances , ii) Court decision are to be respected regardless of the status, race, gender or rank; 20. Condemns that there was a large numbers of refugees (IDPs) that were created due to the instable environment of the countries involved in the Arab spring and have now fled. Identification of their location and their relocation to respective areas is essential; 21. Reaffirms Articles 12 - 30 of the Refugee Convention set out the rights which individuals are entitled to once they have been recognized as Convention refugees: i) All refugees must be granted identity papers and travel documents that allow them to travel outside the country ii) Refugees must receive the same treatment as nationals of the receiving country with regard to the following rights: a. Free exercise of religion and religious education, b. Free access to the courts, including legal assistance, c. Access to elementary education, d. Access to public relief and assistance, e. Protection provided by social security, f. Protection of intellectual property, such as inventions and trade names, g. Protection of literary, artistic and scientific work, h. Equal treatment by taxing authorities, iii) Refugees must receive the most favorable treatment provided to nationals of a foreign country with regard to the following rights, a. The right to belong to trade unions, b. The right to belong to other non-political nonprofit organizations, c. The right to engage in wage-earning employment; 22. Defines Internally Displaced Persons as Persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflicts, situations of generalized violence, violations of the human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border; 23. Provide the displaced with support according to their needs, focusing particularly on livelihoods, skills development and education, in order to facilitate durable solutions; 24. Encourages states to take proactive measures deal with the root causes of displacement to prevent further displacement through early risk assessment; 25. Monitor the situation of IDPs who have returned to their places of habitual residence and of those who have sought to settle elsewhere or to integrate locally, Urges to : i) Provide assistance where needed to ensure they are no longer, advantaged or face discrimination as a result of their displacement,
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ii) iii) iv)

Ensure that IDPs continue to be eligible for assistance as long as they have needs related their displacement, Provision of rehabilitation packages until the IDPs fully recover to selfsustainability, Take into consideration the will of the IDPs when resettlement takes place and avoid involuntary movement of IDPs;

26. Calls upon authorities to register all people present in an IDP camp both at an individual level as well a household level, The authorities shall, i) Employ effective methods such as biometric scanning and fingerprint enrollment, ii) Maintain a detailed general database which include the name, background information and other common details like gender and age: a) the database should be shared with the governmental authorities as well as the police department to check for criminal enrollments in the camps, b) the database of IDPs must be preserved until full rehabilitation and reintegration is achieved; iii) Allot IDP number to all registered IDPs within a camp for allocation and distribution of Aid packages more efficiently, iv) Make the distinction between IDPs and international refugees in this registration process, v) extend all enrollment details to UNHCR and national humanitarian institutions for overall coordination; 27. Calls for the establishment of United Nations Fund of the Arab spring; financial aid shall be: i) Given in form of periodic installations, whereby the next installation shall only be released from the UNFIDP when the government provides empirical evidence of the usage of the installation that preceded it, ii) Shall be transferred directly into assigned accounts created by the government for humanitarian projects endorsed by the United Nations, iii) Set-up a monitoring body individually for every region to monitor the usage of Aid and produce tri-annual reports on the efficiency of the usage of funds; 28. Calls UNHCR in collaboration with the National Institutions for shelter and emergency accommodation to ensure: i) Installation of weather protected and fireproof camps, ii) Camps have a certain set number of occupancy to prevent overcrowding of camps, iii) Provision of clothing; 29. Calls upon WHO in cooperation with the national institutions to work to improve health care facilities in affected areas. Urges, i) Incentivizing the mobilization of doctors from urban areas to refugee camps, ii) Developed countries to send specialized teams of doctors to train local people and teach first aid, iii) Provision of medical machinery, iv) To organize workshops and work for the availability of contraceptives to tackle the problem of STDs such as HIV/AIDs,

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v) vi)

The provision of guidelines for the identification of common diseases and their preventive measures to create awareness, Provision of cost free medicine;

30. Urges the setup of water treatment plants and adequate sanitation facilities with the collaboration of UNESCO, further urges, i) Provision of hygiene kits to people through UNESCO, ii) Provision of technology to look and exploit aquifers for provision of clean water; 31. Draws attention of the international community on inadequate educational infrastructure and inappropriate educational standards, Urges UNICEF in collaboration with the national educational authorities for the: i) Provision of primary and secondary education to children according the basic international standards, ii) Establishment of educational centers to monitor the educational conditions in IDP camps, iii) Professional teachers from within the country and abroad to train locals, including women, iv) Encouragement of student to further teach children in IDP camps, v) Establishment of mobile educational programs, vi) Provision of books free of cost to students, vii) Provision of scholarship opportunities; 32. Reaffirms the need to ensure that programs delivering safe and nutritious food are inclusive of and accessible to all persons including the IDPs, authorities shall i) Provide food inform of ration packets to the IDPs and refugee camps with appropriate nutrients as per the international standards of the WFP, ii) Ensure provision of food according to need assessments carried out in the refugee camps; 33. Urges international community in collaboration with the government to ensure and facilitate the provision and augmenting of economic opportunities by, i) Promoting vocational training and livelihood programs in IDP camps to increase self-sustainability, ii) Facilitating household related industries by provision of local textile as well as other machinery to encourage self-employment especially in women, iii) Providing micro-finance assistance to encourage economic regeneration, iv) Providing incentives to national authorities such as debt relief to encourage spending on economic regeneration; 34. Calls upon states to provide durable solutions, and encourages strengthened international cooperation, including through the provision of resources and expertise to assist affected countries, and in particular developing countries, in their national efforts and policies related to assistance, protection and rehabilitation; 35. Recommends proposing the above solutions as a convention to the United Nations General Assembly.