World news story

Universal Periodic Review 32: Vanuatu

The UK welcomed Vanuatu's adoption of policies promoting gender equality, but remains concerned that there are currently no women represented in Parliament.

• From: UK Mission to the WTO, UN and Other International Organisations (Geneva)
• Published: 24 January 2019

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

Thank you, Mr Vice-President,

The UK appreciates Vanuatu’s participation in the UPR process, and welcomes the opening of the permanent mission of Vanuatu in Geneva last year.

We also welcome the adoption of the National Gender Equality policy and Gender Equity in Education Policy in an effort to promote gender equality and eliminate discrimination against women.

However, we are concerned that gender inequality remains an issue. There are currently no women represented in the Vanuatu parliament and we encourage this to change. We also encourage Vanuatu to improve detention conditions.

We recommend:

1. To adopt an open, merit-based process when selecting national candidates for UN Treaty Body elections.

2. To ratify and implement the 2014 ILO Protocol to the Forced Labour Convention 1930, (P029).

3. To ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture.

Thank you, Mr Vice-President.

Published 24 January 2019