Advance questions
- How are gender based violence and female genital mutilation addressed in the national plan for human rights?
- How will the government work to secure a smooth transition from UNMIL to national responsibility?
- What will the government do to bring more offenders to justice?
Statement
Mr. President,
Norway welcomes the delegation of Liberia and compliments it for the presentation of the report and for responses provided to advance questions. We express our great sympathy with the people of Liberia, and commend both the Government and the people for their efforts in combating the Ebola outbreak. We acknowledge that the crisis has delayed many political processes during the past year.
We also acknowledge the progress made since the last UPR.
However, a weak justice- and security sector remains a challenge. A notable success is the establishment of regional security hubs providing people in rural areas better access to services that will enhance the Human Right situation. We support the plan for a national takeover of responsibility for security from UNMIL by June 2016, but are concerned about the national capacity to replace it. We are particularly concerned about the high levels of gender based violence (GBV), especially rape of young women, even very small girls.
We recommendthat the Government continue to work with UNMIL and other partners to prepare for the national takeover, including concrete measures to reduce gender based violence and strengthen the justice- and security sector.
The high dropout rates of girls from schools is also a challenge to the rights of women in Liberia. We recommendthat the education system secure equal rights to boys and girls and that targeted measures are put in place to reduce the high dropout rates of girls from high schools.
We note that the government are taking measures to combat corruption in society. We recommend continued and increased effort to reduce impunity for those responsible for embezzlement of public money.
Finally, we are concerned about the fact that Liberia still maintains the death sentence and recommend the removal of the paragraph prescribing death penalty as legal punishment by law.
Thank you