Human rights

Australia is deeply concerned about the human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan. We call on the Taliban to allow safe passage for citizens and visa holders and to allow unimpeded access for all humanitarian workers.

Australia thanks the High Commissioner and her office for their oral update. We note with deep sadness and concern the recent anniversary of flawed presidential elections in Belarus, and the arrest of human rights defenders in July 2021. We have also witnessed the regrettable erosion of media independence in Belarus.

I commend the Council for this Annual Discussion on the integration of a gender perspective throughout its work and that of its mechanisms.

Increased reliance on technology for school, work and leisure has created further opportunities, particularly during COVID-19, for perpetrators to abuse, monitor, isolate, humiliate and control, both overtly and covertly.

Australia congratulates South Sudan on its 10th anniversary as an independent state. We welcome recent developments, including a reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly, and initial steps to develop the permanent constitution.

The health emergency caused by COVID-19 and its consequences highlighted the essential role that care work plays in our daily life, in society and in the economy. Furthermore, it exposed that the unequal distribution of care work is one of the main root causes of gender inequalities.

More than 70 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth. However, in reality, discrimination, either de jure or de facto, persists, even in the diplomatic arena.

Australia remains deeply concerned by the deteriorating human rights situation in Myanmar. It is over 7 months since the military coup in Myanmar, and with each month that passes, the death toll and number of arrests continue to rise. Many of those killed and detained have been young people exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression.

Statement to the UN Human Rights Council – 48th session, 13 September 2021, Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM, Chairperson, Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions

Australia thanks the High Commissioner for her presentation and welcomes her report. As a member of the core group of resolution 45/28, Australia supports strengthened linkages between the work of the Council and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda.

Australia thanks the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for its written report and welcomes its consideration of the Declaration Against the Use of Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations.