HRC45: Oral statement during ID on the rights of older persons

Item 3:ID with the Independent Expert on the rights of older persons

Organisation: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW)

Speaker: Claire Denman

Thank you, Madame President,

CSW thanks the Independent Expert for her work, annual report and country visits.

The China country visit report states that older persons, including those from religious minority groups, continue to experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, affecting their full enjoyment and exercise of human rights, including access to health.

There is mounting evidence, based on information provided in witness testimonies, that older persons are among those detained in camps the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), also referred to as East Turkestan by many Uyghurs.

CSW has collated several reports of older persons dying apparently in connection with the poor conditions and abusive treatment in the camps.

In other cases, older persons’ health needs suffer as family members are detained and unable to provide care. In one first-hand testimony a Uyghur woman living outside the country shared that her 75-year-old mother-in-law, who is in ill-health, blind and deaf, has been left uncared for and unsupported because all her other relatives are in camps.

CSW urges China to release those arbitrarily detained immediately and without condition, including all older persons. We further call for a mechanism to be established to investigate and monitor cases of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention in the Uyghur Region, as well as other human rights abuses in China, including violations of the rights of older persons.

Madame Independent Expert, your report stresses the need to translate the National Human Rights Action Plan (2016-2020) protection guarantees into practice, and to eliminate multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination experienced by older persons.

What can this council do to support such efforts and ensure perpetrators of human rights abuses, including mass arbitrary detention, are held to account?

Thank you.