Ms Ebadi (Nobel prize winner)said admitting either Iran or Saudi Arabia would be "a joke"
However, Saudi Arabia, which also faced protests from rights groups, secured a seat. Iran had initially been guaranteed a seat as there were no competitors, but East Timor later proposed itself and won the place instead.
The new agency, known as UN Women, merges four existing bodies.
Human Rights Watch had said that admitting either Iran or Saudi Arabia would send the wrong signal to women around the world given their poor rights records.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said that membership of countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia on the board was "like a joke".
The current Executive Board, elected on 10 November 2010, consists of:
ReplyDeleteAfrica: Angola, Cape Verde, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria and Tanzania
Asia: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Republic of Korea and Timor-Leste
Eastern Europe: Estonia, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine
Latin America and the Caribbean: Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada and Peru
Western Europe: Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden
Contributing Countries: Mexico, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Spain, United Kingdom and United States
http://www.unwomen.org/about-un-women/executive-board/