Sudan's Treatment Of Women Questioned
Rights & Democracy today condemned the Khartoum State Governor's recent decree barring women from jobs in public places.
Montr?al, September 13, 2000 ? Rights & Democracy today condemned the Khartoum State Governor's recent decree barring women from jobs in public places.
"The Sudanese government should not receive Canada's blessing unless and until it is ready to meet its international obligations with regards to women's rights," Rights & Democracy President Warren Allmand said in a letter to Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy.
"Mr. Allmand said Mr. Axworthy should raise this issue of women's rights with Mustafa Osman Ismail, the Foreign Affairs minister, who is attending the federally-sponsored International Conference on War-Affected Children in Winnipeg this week.
The Khartoum decree, which bars women from jobs in which they might come into contact with men, including hotel, restaurant and gas station work, discriminates against women's right to equal access to the workplace. This right is protected in the Sudanese Constitution and also in the International Bill of Human Rights, which has been ratified by Sudan.
Rights & Democracy extends its support and encouragement to the Sudanese Women's Union, and other human rights groups, who have defended women's right to equality with men.
Women are already severely affected by 17 years of war and famine in Sudan. The enactment of this decree will result in many women losing their jobs, only exacerbating dire economic conditions Sudanese women already have to face. To push women further into economic hardship will ultimately lead them to further degradation, contrary to the pretensions of the Governor of Khartoum, Majzoub Khalifa, that the new decree will protect women from the indignity of harassment by men. The Sudanese government must create a climate, which does not tolerate the intimidation of women by men, rather than removing women from public places.
Rights & Democracy calls on the Government of Sudan to uphold all guarantees of women's equality to men enshrined in the Constitution and the International Bill of Human Rights. It also calls on the Sudanese government to join with the democratic countries of the world and sign, then ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Mr. Allmand also urged Canada, in his letter, to request that Sudan immediately rescind the discriminatory decree and ratify the Convention.
