HRC Presser-Special Rapporteur on Discrimination against Women and Girls

Good afternoon and welcome to this press conference by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls.

Miss Reem AS Salem, the Special Rapporteur, will be briefing today on her report to the Human Rights Council that she presented yesterday.

We'll open with a few remarks from the expert and then open up for questions.

Good afternoon everyone.

It's really a pleasure to Meet the Press.

I think this is my first encounter with you since I assumed my functions two years ago, so very happy to have this exchange.

As you know, I presented in fact yesterday and also part of today, my second thematic report to the Human Rights Council on the intersection between child custody issues, violence against women and violence against children.

And I also presented the reports on my official country visits to Libya and to Turkey.

Perhaps just to say that with regards to my thematic report, I focused on the deeply embedded gender bias that pervades in family court systems across the globe, and which is placing women and children in situations of immense suffering and and violence.

And that is because the tendency of family courts in many parts of the world is to dismiss the history of domestic violence and ***** in child custody issues, especially where mothers and or children have brought forward credible allegations of domestic *****.

And So what happens is that the history of intimate partner violence against women is often neglected.

And so courts rule default, rule shared custody or give parental authority to to either the the abusive side or to to both parents.

And the best the the contact with both parents is really prioritised at at all or any expense.

And the report actually also makes quite a lot of recommendations.

And I would summarise it by saying that really there is a need to centre the needs and testimonies of victims and to adopt A child centred approach that prioritises the best interest of the child.

And finally, I would say that you will see in the report a lot of reference to this unscientific and unfounded concept of parental alienation, which is usually actually invoked predominantly against mothers.

And it's a way of claiming that a parent is deliberately putting pressure on the children not to engage with the other parent.

And it's an unfounded theory.

And it's usually invoked against the mothers as a way of diverting attention from more serious issues of domestic ***** or domestic violence or coercive control, either against, in this case, the mother or the child.

So I will stop here and I'm happy to receive any questions about the report, but also about my country visits or about also any other issues that I've been working on in the last two years since I became Mandy told her.

Thank you.

Thank you to the Special Rapporteur.

She will now take questions and we will begin with questions from the room.

We'll move to questions online directly.

Please raise your hand if you have a question and it would be great if you can mention your name and your organisation when you ask a question.

Thank you.

Are there any questions for the rapporteur?

Hello, My name is Christiana, German Press Agency.

I I thought I was punctual, but maybe I missed the start here.

Can you talk about the children that have been taken from Ukraine to Russia?

Is that a subject that you were dealing with?

And is there anything you can tell us about the situation?

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for that question.

It's not an issue that I dealt with in the context of this thematic report.

As you also know, my mandate figures or focuses more specifically on the issue of violence against girls.

I did, however, in my recent, most recent country visit to Poland, of course also engage on the issue of Ukrainian refugee women and girls in in Ukraine, in in Poland and also looked at the risks that they are exposed to when fleeing Ukraine or as they were in Poland.

Of course, Poland has very generously accepted a large number of refugees from the Ukraine.

But we looked at issues of separation of children, obviously from their parents.

They were Ukrainian orphans that had also arrived to Poland.

And the Polish government was trying to see, you know, what's the best way to to protect in the system.

And I also looked at also the access of Ukrainian children to education in Poland.

We know that actually being in school is one of the best ways to protect children.

But many, of course, children were receiving home schooling and were following the curriculum, the Ukrainian curriculum.

So these are all issues that I looked at, but I will of course also elaborate on them in more detail in my detailed report that I will present to the Council next year.

But I would like to refer you to my end of mission statement that I had issued upon completing my country visit to Poland and which is available online.

Any other questions for the Special Rapporteur, Christian?

Yeah, sorry.

I will try once more.

I was also referring to the children that have been taken from Ukraine to Russia.

And these are children, girls, and that is violence.

I wonder whether that would fall under your mandate.

Thank you.

If it involves Ukrainian girls, it would of course fall under my mandate.

I have not, however, received any separate information from any party yet.

You cannot hear me.

Can you hear me now?

Shall I try the other one?

Can you hear me on Zoom?

Try this one.

Is this better?

Can you hear?

Can you hear us online?

Hello Francois or studio, can someone unmute B128 to the question?

OK, so, so to answer the first question, I I have not yet received any separate information from any actor regarding Ukrainian children that were reportedly taken to Russia.

If I do receive information of that sort and if it includes also the case of Ukrainian girls, then it would fall under my mandate.

Some information may have been received over the last two days that I've been busy with the Council, but until now, to the best of my knowledge, I have not received a separate communication.

What I was saying, though, is that in my most recent visit, a country visit to Poland, I have of course engaged with Ukrainian women and girls, as I usually do, because I of course engage on issues of violence against all women and girls on a specific territory.

So that can be nationals of a country that can be also migrants, refugees can be stateless persons.

So I have actually also engaged with Ukrainian women and adolescent girls.

I have looked at the issue of Ukrainian orphans that had arrived from Ukraine to to Poland and also their access to protection assistance.

I am aware of the issue of, you know, family reunification and, and also their access to education in, in Poland.

There will be a very detailed report of my country visit to Poland that I will be submitting in June 2024.

But for the time being, if you are interested actually to, to look to see what issues I looked at with regards to Ukrainian women and girls in Poland.

There is an end of mission statement that was issued right after the visit.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

If there aren't questions at this time, would the rapporteur like to make a few more remarks?

Anything Not at the moment.

As I explained to the Council yesterday, it was important for me to address this issue because the mandate had received quite a lot of testimonies and and information from primarily mothers who felt that they were unfairly treated in family courts and were losing custody unfairly because of this pseudo concept of parental alienation being invoked against them.

So initially I did not have the intention of writing a thematic report, but seeing the flood of information that was coming from countries all over the world where there were really similar experiences being described and where it was clear that there was really a colossal miscarriage of justice happening against predominantly mothers and their children.

I felt compelled really to bring this to the attention of the Council Also.

Because I feel that as special procedures, it is our responsibility also to bring to the attention of the Council some of these complex issues, emerging issues I would call them, of violence against women and children.

And where perhaps the international community is not yet sufficiently aware of the dynamics of violence and how issues of domestic violence, gender bias, violence against children really are, are happening in the different jurisdictions.

And where the gaps are in the response and what also needs to happen to better prevent these kind of violations from happening.

So I wanted also to raise it as a, as a human rights concern or a series of human rights concerns, not just as a sort of private matter or a family court matter, but really describe the many human rights consequences of, of, of this phenomenon.

I also was very interested in presenting my reports on my visits to Libya and Turkey.

As I said at the Council yesterday, I'm extremely concerned about the situation of women and girls in Libya, whether they are Libyans or whether they are foreigners.

I think perhaps the media has engaged more on the situation of migrant migrants coming from Libya and of course we are all aware of the the the tragic situation in the Mediterranean Sea.

That is totally preventable because of course it is possible not only to organise better search and rescue, but also to stop any cooperation with the Libyan authorities when it comes to intercepting ships that carry migrant women, men, children from Libya who are fleeing not only violence in their own countries, but are fleeing really also a very precarious and problematic situation in Libya where they, they, they are residing or passing through.

And then, but having said that, I think there has been less awareness about the, the, the situation of Libyan women and girls and also the, the limitations when it comes to being able to identify and respond to their, to their concerns.

And of course the the insecure situation on Libya means that this violence is perpetrated by a number of actors, some of them affiliated with the state, some of them private actors, some of them armed groups, also intra familiar violence.

So, so that is an issue that I was very concerning to me.

And then of course, when it comes to Turkia, I had a very good constructive mission.

I looked at many different issues, including the consequences of Turkia's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention on its own national mechanisms and efforts to better prevent and respond to violence against women and girls.

And I really look forward also to continuing to cooperate with all actors in Turkey on the follow up to the report.

But I was very happy to hear that the report was well received and and so were the recommendations.

And frankly, it was, it was a very constructive engagement from the Turkish authorities, but also from all other parties in in Turkey.

Thank you for that.

Do we have any other questions for the rapporteur?

If there are no questions, then we can wrap up this press conference.

Thank you very much.

And thank you all for joining us.