After wrapping up her visit to the United Kingdom on April 15, 2014 Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, declared that sexism in the UK is more "pervasive" than any other country.
Manjoo made the comments during a presentation of her preliminary findings on the situation on women's rights in the United Kingdom. In her words: "Have I seen this level of sexist culture in other countries? It hasn't been so in your face in other countries. I haven't seen that so pervasively in other countries. I'm sure it exists but it wasn't so much and so pervasive."
The Special Rapporteur is appointed by the UN "Human Rights" Council. The Council's mandate for the position includes seeking and receiving information on violence against women, its causes and consequences; responding effectively to such information and recommending measures, ways and means at the local, national, regional and international levels to eliminate all forms of violence against women.
During her tenure as the UN expert on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo has visited several countries with actual abysmal records on women's rights.
In November 2009 she visited Kyrgyzstan who has a practice of kidnapping women and girls for forced marriage. Manjoo ended up lauding the country for "undertaking important initiatives which have resulted in a number of significant achievements in raising the status of women."
In 2010 she was in El Salvador which, according to the UN agency "UN Women," is the country with the highest murder rate of women in the world - femicide - a crime involving the violent and deliberate killing of women. Yet Manjoo found praise for the country's "commitment to placing the human rights of individuals at the centre of its policies, laws and institutions."
In 2010 the UN expert was also in Algeria where a woman must be "incapacitated for 15 days or more and present a doctor's note certifying the injuries before filing charges" for spousal abuse. But Manjoo was thrilled that Algeria has "distinguished itself in the promotion of the status of women."
Then in 2011 she visited Zambia where wife beating is widespread and where "sexual cleansing" is practiced, a practice in which "a widow is compelled to have sexual relations with her late husband's relatives". However, Manjoo was pleased that "the Government has committed to continue advancing gender mainstreaming."
In 2011 she was in Jordan where, according to customary belief, "if a woman marries her rapist her family members do not need to kill her to 'preserve the family's honor.'" Nevertheless, Rashida Manjoo was happy to praise the government of Jordan for taking "important steps to achieve [women's] integration into education, employment and politics."
Conversely, during her 2011 visit to the United States, the Special Rapporteur found "the continued prevalence of violence against women and the discriminatory treatment of victims."
The UN Human Rights Council's Code of Conduct, which governs the work of all UN human rights experts, states that they must "ensure that their personal political opinions are without prejudice to the execution of their mission, and [to] base their conclusions and recommendations on objective assessments of human rights situations."
The current UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women clearly hasn't been able to put her personal political opinions aside while passing judgments on women's rights in countries around the world. Doing a tremendous disservice to the real victims of women's rights violations everywhere.