Ireland accused over women's rights

[theHandpuppet]

The Belfast Telegraph
Ireland accused over women's rights
31 July 2014

The Government has been accused of allowing Ireland to fall even further behind European nations in defending women's rights and protecting against violence.

A week since the United Nations issued a damning verdict on the state's record, organisations lashed Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald for failing to follow the example of 36 other European states and sign up to new ground-breaking rules.

From tomorrow the Council of Europe will bring into effect a blueprint of measures to prevent and combat violence against women, including in the home, protect victims and prosecute attackers.

The Istanbul Convention defines and criminalises forced marriage, female genital mutilation, stalking, physical and psychological violence and sexual violence....

Read more at http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/republic-of-ireland/ireland-accused-over-womens-rights-30475104.html

[theHandpuppet]

1. Really, they need to join the 21st Century

Disgusting and shameful.

Bustle
24 July, 2013
Super-Restrictive Ireland Abortion Laws Are Violating Women's Rights, And The UN Knows It
Lauren Barbato

Abortion rights in Ireland are basically non-existent. Since the 1800s, abortion has been outlawed in the Catholic state, even in cases of rape and incest, and those who obtained or administered abortions faced lengthy prison sentences — or, until the latter half of the 20th century, the death penalty. The sad state of abortion affairs in Ireland recently attracted the attention of the United Nations. In a just-released report, the UN urged Ireland to revise its constitution to include abortion, or else the government will be violating the rights of women.

The report, issued by U.N. Human Rights Committee, honed in on Ireland’s Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, which allows doctors to provide an abortion when there is serious risk to the mother’s life, including from suicide. The 2013 law was partly spurred by the death of Savita Halappanavar, an Indian woman living in Ireland, in November 2012. Halappanavar was miscarrying at 17 weeks and denied an abortion, reportedly told by doctors that she was in a “Catholic country”; she later died of organ failure and sepsis.

The act was also supposed to clarify some provisions in Ireland’s constitution, which was amended in 1992 because of the “X case.” Then, the Irish Supreme Court allowed abortion in serious health cases, but the terms were never outlined in legislation...

...According to the U.N., the circumstances under which Irish women can have abortions are still “highly restrictive.” The committee is concerned about the criminalization of abortion — which is currently set at 14 years in prison — as well as the presence of biased crisis pregnancy centers, the “excessive degree of scrutiny” for women thinking of suicide, and the “severe mental suffering caused by the denial of abortion services to women seeking abortions.”

MORE at http://www.bustle.com/articles/33080-super-restrictive-ireland-abortion-laws-are-violating-womens-rights-and-the-un-knows-it