UN Slams US Policy Of Family Separation At Border With Mexico

UNITED NATIONS, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Jun, 2018 ) :The UN human rights chief called on the Trump administration on Monday to halt its "unconscionable" policy of forcibly separating children from migrant parents irregularly entering the country via Mexico.

"The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable," UN High Commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said as he opened a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

US officials said on Friday that nearly 2,000 children were separated from adults at the border between mid-April and the end of May as the Trump administration implements stricter border enforcement policies.

Administration officials say the tactic is necessary to secure the border and suggest it will act as a deterrent to illegal immigration.

But High Commissioner Zeid said the policies "punish children for their parents' actions." "The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable. I call on the United States to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of these children," Zeid said in his final speech to the 47-member Council before his term in office ends.

The US delegation, led by Geneva-based diplomat Jason Mack, did not refer to migration issues in its subsequent speech upholding LGBT rights and denouncing violence and discrimination against homosexual and transgender people.

Britain's foreign secretary Boris Johnson praised the Council for shining a light on appalling violations worldwide, saying it was part of the rules-based international system.

But Britain shared the view with the United States that maintaining a permanent agenda item focusing solely on Israel and the Palestinian territories was "damaging," Johnson said.

Zeid said that "longstanding, grave and systematic" human rights violations continued in North Korea and urged Pyongyang to cooperate with the UN investigator on the isolated country whose mandate it does not recognise.

He cited clear indications of "well-organized, widespread and systematic attacks" continuing against Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar, "amounting possibly to acts of genocide," while conflict has escalated in Kachin and Shan states.

The Myanmar government's efforts to prosecute perpetrators have lacked credibility and human rights monitors must be on the ground before Rohingya refugees return from Bangladesh, he said.

Myanmar has denied nearly all of the allegations, claiming its security forces have been waging a legitimate counter-insurgency operation against what it calls Rohingya terrorists.