Gabon was elected to serve a 3-year term on November 12, 2012 when 187 UN member states, out of 193 UN General Assembly members, voted in favor of Gabon's candidacy. In fact, this is Gabon's third term on the UN Council since its establishment in 2006. In December 2013, Gabon was also elected Council president for 2014.
This is just some of what the most recent State Department report says about human rights in Gabon:
- "Security force personnel committed human rights abuses. The most important human rights problems in the country were harsh prison conditions, lengthy pretrial detention, and ritual killings. Other major human rights problems included: use of excessive force by police; an inefficient judiciary subject to government influence; restrictions on privacy and the press; harassment and extortion of African immigrants and refugees; widespread government corruption...Authorities seldom prosecuted rape cases. The law does not address spousal rape...[R]ape... was believed to be a frequent occurrence. Discussing rape remained taboo, and women often opted not to report rape due to fear of reprisal or shame....Domestic violence... was believed to be common... Police rarely intervened in such incidents. ...[T]he law...requires a married woman to obtain her husband's permission to receive a passport and to travel abroad... FGM/C [Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting] was believed to occur among the resident population of noncitizen Africans. Ritual killings, primarily of children, in which limbs, genitals, or other organs were amputated, occurred and often went unpunished. The practice was driven by the belief that certain body parts enhanced certain strengths...."