Dimapur, March 8 (MExN): The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) today reaffirmed its commitment towards ensuring “a future of justice, empowerment, equality and prosperity for women across the world.”
“CHRI joins all groups and governments committed to these efforts in the struggle to promote political, social and economic empowerment of women by eliminating gender-based violence, securing access to justice and providing quality education to women,” stated CHRI Executive Directo Sanjoy Hazarika in a message issued on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2017,
The need to bridge gender is increasingly recognized as central to national, and indeed, global progress as they are both enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter which covers 52 nations as well as the Constitution and is at the heart of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it added.
CHRI further maintained that despite the growing international consensus on women empowerment, significant gaps remains in many Commonwealth nations in “ensuring unhindered access to justice for women, which is essential for the practical realization of their rights.”
Among others, CHRI listed a dominant patriarchy; lack of awareness of legal rights and remedies; insensitive and unaccountable policing; and judicial processes which are gender insensitive as some factors impeding women’s access to justice
“Police services remain bastions of masculinity, with poor representation of women,” it added. “These are the spaces and places where visible, enduring and critical changes must take place if the rights of women are to be upheld and celebrated.”
CHRI was started in 1987 as an independent, international organisation committed to protecting and promoting human rights in Commonwealth nations.
