PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Mike Buchanan

Telephone: +44 7967 026163

Email: davia@endtodv.org

Engulfed in Scandal, New Petition Calls for Defunding the United Nations

January 15, 2024 – Reports of new scandals at various United Nations agencies reveal systemic problems at the global organization, as well as a persistent unwillingness of UN leaders to address the abuses. In response, DAVIA has launched a petition to Defund the United Nations.

The United Nations has been beset by numerous incidents of corruption and abuse over the years (1). The following five scandals were reported in just the past month:

Human Rights Council: The Human Rights Council recently announced the visit of Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem to the United Kingdom, beginning on February 12. (2) The HRC’s founding document calls for upholding the “equal rights of men and women.” (3) But Alsalem’s visit, inexplicably, will consider only the concerns of women (4).

UN Women: The global feminist agency has been beset by several scandals in recent months (5). Most recently, following revelations that UN Women’s Sarah Douglas had endorsed 153 anti-Zionist Twitter posts, the United Nations admitted that Douglas in fact had “committed a violation of the Code of Conduct.” But the UN spokesperson gave no indication of the disciplinary actions that were taken (6).

World Health Organization: In its January 1, 2024 Bulletin, the World Health Organization demanded that controversial and harmful “gender-affirming” treatments be viewed as a human rights “imperative” (7). Among the 21 members of the WHO panel developing the transgender guidelines, 11 have no medical background. The remaining 10 panelists are transgender activists (8).

UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees): A Telegram group consisting of 3,000 UNRWA teachers is filled with posts celebrating the Hamas massacre of October 7th, praising the murderers as “heroes,” and gleefully sharing photos of dead Israelis (9).

Commission on the Status of Women: The 68th meeting of the Commission will be held in New York City on March 11-22. (10) The gender disparities that affect men and boys around the world have been well-documented (11). But the UN has no Commission on the Status of Men, and no identified focus for efforts to remedy these long-standing disparities.

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance has issued dozens of statements that document the failure of UN agencies to uphold basic human rights (12). Given the UN’s lack of response, DAVIA recently launched a petition to Defund the United Nations (13).

The petition calls for “nations and donor organizations to suspend their funding of the United Nations until all UN agencies fulfill their pledge to respect the ‘dignity and worth’ of all persons and assure the ‘equal rights of men and women.’”

All are invited to sign the petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-defund-the-united-nations/

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — consists of 122 member organizations from 34 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. DAVIA seeks to ensure that domestic violence and abuse polices are science-based, family-affirming, and sex-inclusive. https://endtodv.org/davia/

Links:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_United_Nations
  2. https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2024/call-inputs-country-visit-united-kingdom-great-britain-and-northern-ireland
  3. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
  4. https://www.saveservices.org/2024/01/exposing-un-womens-anti-male-bias-reem-alsalem-to-visit-the-uk/
  5. https://endtodv.org/pr/5-scandals-in-3-months-at-un-women-female-leaders-need-to-speak-out/
  6. https://unwatch.org/un-admits-un-women-deputy-chiefs-anti-israel-tweets-violated-code-of-conduct/
  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10753275/
  8. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12940493/HALF-WHOs-transgender-health-committee-members-NO-medical-background-majority-activists.html
  9. https://unwatch.org/group-of-3000-unrwa-teachers-celebrates-hamas-massacre-and-rape/
  10. . https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/csw68-2024#:~:text=The%20sixty%2Deighth%20session%20of,to%20contribute%20to%20the%20session.
  11. https://endtodv.org/camp/council-on-men-and-boys/
  12. https://endtodv.org/camp/un-fair/
  13. https://www.change.org/p/defund-the-united-nations