Support for women’s rights in the Maldives declining, finds HRCM study
26 Jan 2013, 11:47 AM
Leah Malone
Support for women’s equality has experienced a “significant drop” despite overall progress in improving the human rights situation nationally, a Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) second baseline survey has concluded.
“The ‘Rights’ Side of Life” [report] studied knowledge, behaviours and attitudes regarding human rights in the Maldives and reinforced many of the findings from the 2005 survey,” according to the UNDP-backed report released by the HRCM in December 10, 2012.
However, fewer respondents than in the first study believed that women should have equal rights to men in all seven of the areas surveyed (inheritance, divorces, work, politics, family matters, courts, custody), the report found.
“Despite the freedoms that the constitution has provided for women, attitudes towards women’s empowerment show a negative trend,” stated Andrew Cox, the recently-departed UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP representative in the Maldives.
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