Human rights advocacy groups have urged the Government of Zimbabwe to embrace recommendations it deferred at the recently held Universal Periodic Review of Zimbabwe in Geneva Switzerland.
Addressing journalists in Harare on Tuesday, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum commended Zimbabwe for producing a national report calling on them to embrace recommendations that seek to eradicate the culture of torture and enforced disappearances.
Roselyn Hanzi, ZLHR Acting Director said Zimbabwe must work on embracing recommendations ratify human rights instruments.
“We urge Government to embrace those recommendations in order to eradicate the culture of torture and enforced disappearances that continue to tarnish the human rights record of the country,” she said.
Hanzi added that the government must also consider recommendations that it did not accept especially those that focus on issues of non-discrimination of persons based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity as well as ratification of the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its protocol is one of the instruments that Zimbabwe is still to ratify.
“Further the Forum and ZLHR encourages the government to remain open to constructive dialogue as led by different stakeholders, whether from other UN member states, civil society or other actors that have an interest in contributing to fostering a culture of human rights in Zimbabwe,” said Hanzi.
During the Universal Periodic Review, 260 recommendations were given to Zimbabwe, accepting 142, noting and rejecting 18 while deferred 100 for further scrutiny and consideration.
The UPR process is a peer country -to-country review mechanism established by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2006 to monitor overall human rights situation of UN member states. Zimbabwe was reviewed on 2 November 2016.
Zimbabwe was represented to the 26th session of the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva by a 25 member delegation led by the Vice President and Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Emerson Mnangagwa.
