Women, democracy and Islam: a Nobel laureate's views on human rights.

"I am here not as a representative of any government nor any political party, but as a defendant and a lawyer of human rights, defending the people who have devoted their life to human rights", 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi said as she began her lecture on the human rights connection to peace and social development (see UN Chronicle Issue 1, 2004). Her presentation on "Women, Democracy and Islam" in June 2004 at UN Headquarters in New York was sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Mrs. Ebadi began her career as a judge in Tehran. Since 1979, she has worked as a defense lawyer for political dissidents and taught at Tehran University's College of Law. She has shown her independence, activism and advocacy as founder and leader of the Association for Support of Children's Rights in Iran, and through a series of publications, including "The Rights of the Child--A Study of Legal Aspects of Children's Rights in Iran", published with the support of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The accomplishments that Mrs. Ebadi has achieved have come from her concern not only about her country, or solely the role of women in Islamic countries and the world, but also for universal human rights. Committed to protecting human rights, she feels they are the foundation for creating a more just and free world for all.

In her lecture, Mrs. Ebadi said that even though more than 55 years had passed since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world was still not free from the scourge of war. Fear and insecurity, which have always been salient features of developing and totalitarian countries, had affected both developed and democratic societies. The tragedy of hunger, poverty and backwardness, manifested through lack of access to drinking water, health care and medicine, was still haunting a large part of the global population, of which over one sixth rely on a daily income of less than one dollar, she said.

International law concerning human rights, ranging from civil, political and economic to social and cultural rights, has been recognized yet its implementation has been less than stellar. She suggested that until human rights were universally recognized, and the entire world would understand that freedom and justice were inseparable, this impasse would not be broken. In her own words, "no one can reach social justice without freedom, and you cannot eliminate poverty, discrimination and social classification without freedom".

Mrs. Ebadi also reviewed the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): eradicate poverty and starvation; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and elevate the status of women; reduce child mortality rate; improve maternal health; fight devastating diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop and expand global cooperation and partnership for development. She stressed that the reason that the goal of expanding global cooperation was last in the MDG list had to do with the fact that "the performance of the other goals depends on the fulfillment of this very goal".

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The difference between developed and developing countries was striking, she said. According to a UNDP report, life expectancy in Japan was 81.3 years, but in Sierra Leone, it was only 34.5 years. Some 82 per cent of the Ugandan population had a daily income of less than $1; in Angola, only 154 of 1,000 children born would survive the first two years. Mrs. Ebadi asked: "Honestly, how can one fill this deep gap without international cooperation?" There were other concerns, however, that needed to be taken into consideration when international cooperation was at play, especially when this cooperation was portrayed merely by granting loans and credits. As she explained, "granting loans [to countries whose governments are non-democratic] is equal to assistance to the dictator and opposition to the oppressed people". Instead of benefiting the poor who needed the funds, loans were spent on government luxury items and their surplus, credited to politicians' bank accounts. Consequently, authoritarian regimes were strengthened, enabling them to oppress the people, and human rights were ignored on an even more alarming level. On the other hand, people in non-democratic countries, besides suffering from human rights abuses, became indebted and would end up having to compensate, through taxes, for the financial abuse of their Governments.

It was for such reasons that more than one eighth of the world's population was born indebted, Mrs. Ebadi said. This lead to civil unrest and hostility against donor countries by the poor who were affected by the immediate consequences those loans had on their living conditions. "Anger is an enemy of wisdom, and the angry people may attend actions that might endanger universal security", she said, adding that it was precisely for that reason that the cycle of violence would never stop. While countries were spending too much on waging war and maintaining strong armed forces to combat what they assumed would be the cause of terrorism, they tended to neglect the root cause of the problem: the discontentment of the poor. Mrs. Ebadi suggested that this could be avoided by "a little bit of wisdom". Pre-conditions for granting loans and credits were ensured, and countries worldwide could enhance their movement towards democracy and the promotion of human rights. She stressed that without observing human rights, countries, especially poor ones, surely could not attain economic development simply through loans and credits. Funds needed to be accompanied with a forceful framework that could guarantee aid was put in the right hands.

Just as crucial to the development of countries was the establishment of fair elections and freedom of speech, Mrs. Ebadi said. Fair elections enabled citizens to participate effectively in choosing their leaders and the policies their Governments took. A healthy society should also be one that gives credence, in terms of social participation, to all of its citizens, including women and minorities. A government that failed to do so would "deprecate half of the potential of the society" and stunt the country's sufficiency and growth.

Mrs. Ebadi also expressed concern about the fact that certain Islamic countries still did not officially recognize women's rights, particularly those of wives. "The value of a woman's life is half of that of a man's life." She explained that the testimony of two women in court would be equal to that of one man, or the compensation for any injury or damage to a woman would be half of that to a man. Countries could never live up to their full capacity to develop when half of their population was deprived of dignity and civil rights. In addition, children--the promise for a brighter future--in such countries also suffered from violations of rights and a lack of access to a primary education. Mrs. Ebadi underscored this discouraging reality, noting that there were countries whose military budget was ten times that of its educational budget. Their prospects for growth were about as slim as the chance for an addicted gambler to stop wasting his money gambling.

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While the United Nations was undeniably the global platform for Governments around the world, international civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were necessary to ensure that it was effective and efficient. Without their participation, countries could never implement the programmes and policies aimed at achieving the MDGs. Yet, dangers also lay ahead in international civil society. Mrs. Ebadi stressed that if authoritarian political systems had been impeding the growth of certain countries, so too had the hypocrisy of their civil societies. Non-democratic regimes would oftentimes create their own "non-governmental organizations". As elusive as these false NGOs might be, they were a real threat to their countries' development and to the promotion of democracy and human rights there, she suggested.

Mrs. Ebadi expressed the hope that the eight MDGs for international development in the third millennium could be amended in a way that promotion of human rights worldwide would receive the attention it deserved. Historical experience showed that without human rights, no democracy would be born nor economic development achieved. "Human rights should be a part of national culture and be inscribed in the constitution of the country", she said, adding that they could be attained only through democracy and "cannot be bought by wars and imported like cargo". International cooperation would only be beneficial if civil societies realized that they must refuse any kind of cooperation with non-democratic regimes. Mrs. Ebadi recommended that the UN Commission on Human Rights exclude certain countries deemed to have violated human rights and that did not adhere to the basic conventions on human rights. Only then, she continued, would the Commission be free from corruption and governmental influence. The United Nations and its agencies should persist in their efforts, so that the day would come when "all the world population enjoys all human rights".

By Nguyen Tang Le Huy Quoc-Benjamin, for the Chronicle