by Linda Straker
- First and second UPR reviews took place in 2010 and 2015
- Third UPR review in February 2020
- Grenada will be questioned on progress made on domestic violence and child abuse
Grenada’s human rights record will be examined by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the third time on Monday, 27 January 2020.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter David; and Senior Legal Counsel in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Robert Branch; will be in the meeting that will be held in Room 20, Palais des Nations, Geneva.
The documents on which the reviews are based are:
- National report – information provided by the state under review
- Information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and group, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities
- Information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organisations and civil society groups.
According to the advance questions list, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will ask a number of questions including:
What progress has the Government of Grenada made on plans and projects to develop an awareness of, and reduce, the incidence of violence against women and child abuse of all kinds, since drafting the National Strategic Action Plan and engaging in a UN Trust Fund Project entitled, ‘State Response to End Violence Against Women’?
In the constitutional reform changes, will the government repeal all provisions that discriminate against people on the grounds of their sexual orientation and gender identity, thereby protecting the rights of LGBT persons, and what progress has been made on anti-discrimination awareness programmes?
What steps are the government taking to ensure that child labour legislation and minimum age for employment laws are enforced, particularly regarding conditions related to hours, insurance, and working conditions as set forth in the labour code?
Portugal on behalf of the Group of Friends on National Mechanisms for Implementation Reporting and Follow-up (NMIRF) will ask Grenada — among other questions — to describe its national mechanism or process responsible for coordinating the implementation of accepted universal periodic review recommendations and the monitoring of progress and impact.
The UPR is a unique process which involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN Member States have been reviewed twice within the first and second UPR cycles.
Grenada is one of the 14 states to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking place from 20 to 31 January. Grenada’s first and second UPR reviews took place in May 2010 and January 2015, respectively.
During the third UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow-up on, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country.
The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs for the review of Grenada are Brazil, India. and the Netherlands. The webcast of the session will be at http://webtv.un.org.
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