‘SD’S POOR HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD NOT GOOD FOR SADC’

MBABANE – Human Rights Watch has stated that the country’s poor human rights record could further weaken the Southern African Development Community’s ability to push for human rights improvements across the region. 

This is contained in the annual Human Rights Watch World Report, which summarises human rights conditions in 90 countries and territories worldwide in 2016.

The report reflects extensive investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff conducted during the previous year, often in close partnership with domestic human rights activists.
The latest review, which was released on Thursday in Washington, highlights that despite not doing enough to ensure that human rights were respected, the country was allowed to take over the leadership of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for a year.

“Swaziland’s poor and deteriorating human rights record could weaken further the regional body’s ability to press for human rights improvements across Southern Africa,” reads part of the report.
The report states that neighbouring South Africa and regional bodies, the SADC and the African Union, have done little to press Swaziland to improve respect for human rights. The United Nations Human Rights Council assessed Swaziland’s human rights record under the Universal Periodic Review.

“In May 2016, Swaziland accepted 121 of 181 recommendations made by council member states to improve the human rights environment in the country. Authorities committed to improve protection of freedom of expression and association, and to take action to end child marriage,” the report states.

Also highlighted in the report is that government has yet to enact the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill developed in 2009 to protect women’s rights and that neither has the government amended the Girls’ and Women Protection Act, concerned with sexual abuse of girls under 16, but excludes marital rape.

“Violence against women is endemic. Survivors of gender-based violence have few avenues for help as both formal and customary justice processes discriminate against them. Civil society activists have criticised the widely held view among traditional authorities that human rights and equal rights for women are foreign values that should be subordinated to Swazi culture and tradition.”

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