On July 24, 2017, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released its Concluding Observations on Thailand following the review of the country’s combined sixth and seventh periodic reports on July 5, 2017. The CEDAW firmly condemned Thailand for targeting women human rights defenders, calling upon the government to adopt and implement effective measures for their protection. Furthermore, all forms of attacks against women human rights defenders should be duly investigated and prosecuted, and remedies provided.
FIDH, through its Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, along with Protection International (PI), and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) presented their recommendations ahead of the review in their joint report “In harm’s way: Women human rights defenders in Thailand” which documents the pattern of repression of women human rights defenders since the May 2014 coup d’état. These are amply echoed in the CEDAW conclusions which also highlighted the extreme overcrowding of prisons and deplorable conditions that fail to meet international standards. Those issues were notably raised by FIDH and its Thai member organisation Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) in their joint shadow report submitted ahead of the review of Thailand and in “Behind the walls – A look at conditions in Thailand’s prisons after the coup. ”