The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has voted to expel Iran from the UN’s premiere global body for gender equality over Tehran's brutal crackdown on women-led protests.
Following a campaign led by the United States, 29 members of ECOSOC voted to remove the Islamic republic from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) for the remainder of its 2022-26 term.
Eight countries voted against and 16 abstained. A simple majority was needed to adopt the resolution, which strips Iran of its membership of the commission with immediate effect.
Opponents of the resolution, including Russia and China, noted that Iran had been elected to the body and that expelling it set "a dangerous precedent." Russia said before the vote that it wanted an opinion from UN legal experts on whether ECOSOC was legally able to oust Iran.
The UN Commission on the Status of Women, established in 1946, is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Its 45 members are elected for four-year terms by the ECOSOC.
The U.S.-sponsored resolution was sparked by Iran’s ongoing brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters who began their anti-government protests in September after the death of a 22-year-old woman taken into custody by the morality police.
Authorities have made thousands of arrests in the crackdown, which human rights groups say has left almost 500 dead and hundreds more injured. Iran's judiciary said it has handed down 11 death sentences in connection with the protests. Two executions have been carried out.
The text of the resolution says Iranian leaders "continuously undermine and increasingly suppress the human rights of women and girls, including the right to freedom of expression and opinion, often with the use of excessive force."
It adds that Iran's government does so "by administering policies flagrantly contrary to the human rights of women and girls" and the commission's mandate.
U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan called the vote “another sign of the growing international consensus on Iran and demands for accountability.”
Sullivan said in a statement that the United States is working with its allies and partners to hold Iran accountable “for the abuses it is committing against its own people, notably peaceful protesters, women and girls, and the violence it is enabling against the Ukrainian people, as well as its destabilizing actions throughout the Middle East region.”
He also noted that the United States in the last week has issued three separate sets of sanctions targeting Iran’s financing of terror, protest-related human rights violations, and provision of drones to Russia for attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.
The European Union, Britain, Canada, Australia, and other countries have issued new sanctions under their own authorities, he said.