[www.inewsguyana.com] – Guyana’s human rights record will be examined by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the second time on Wednesday, January 28 2015 in a meeting in Geneva.
Guyana is one of the 14 States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking place from 19 to 30 January.
Guyana has been condemned locally for its continued Human Rights abuses meted to the young people of Guyana.
It was pointed out by local groups that the gravity and scale of human rights abuses point to a failure of the State to guarantee even the most fundamental of rights of its citizens and in particular its young people.
A release from the UN’s office in Guyana stated that, “the documents on which the reviews are based are: national report – information provided by the State under review, information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; and information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations and civil society groups.”
A number of issues were raised from the documents that will be used to conduct the review.
The issues that will be addressed are the negative stereotypes against women; discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; decriminalizing same-sex consensual relations; tackling violence against LGBT persons; addressing alleged police abuses, including unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment; combatting all acts of violence against women and girls and supporting victims; abolishing the death penalty; prohibiting corporal punishment; access to clean water and sanitation; reducing maternal and infant mortality rates; access by women and girls to reproductive and HIV health services; reducing school dropout rates among girls; improving literacy rates; and Amerindian land rights and mining activities in indigenous traditional territories.
The review aims to highlight human rights developments in the country to provide an opportunity for States under review to spell out steps taken to implement recommendations posed during their first reviews.
The delegation of Guyana will be headed by Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
