At the end of 30 years of conflict in the North, nearly 4,000 related deaths, countless injuries and maimings and the loss of untold benefits of a cultural and economic character, there will shortly come into existence a document which might be termed the culmination of attempts to address the inequities at the root of that conflict. This document, to be called the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, will underpin civil rights and guarantee the relationship between the state and its citizens.
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was mandated under the Belfast Agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to consult widely about the Bill of Rights before making recommendations to the Secretary of State. The commission has recently published a document outlining the results of its consultations and providing what amounts to a draft Bill of Rights. Once finalised, the Bill of Rights will represent the template for the post-resolution nature Northern Ireland's relationship with its citizens.
Much of the Commission's report seeks to adapt established principle of international human rights legislation, such as the UN Convention, to the specific circumstances of the North. Some of the content is more context-specific. But one thing jumps out. In a document which purports to build anew from the rubble of a conflict arising from the wholesale preferring of members of one religious community over another, there is contained the undoubted foundations of a new set of inequities, this time based on gender.
Under the section "The Proposed Rights", there is a chapter entitled "The Rights of Women", but no such reference to the rights of men. More worryingly, the draft Bill of Rights is based on the same template. In its draft provisions in respect of what it terms "equality", the Commission proposes: "Equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas".
This seems reasonable, but the section continues: "The State must take all necessary measures to promote the equal enjoyment, benefit and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for women and girls." There is therefore, it must be assumed, no obligation on the state to promote the rights of men. The document cites low female participation in political life, reproductive rights, "persistent gender inequality", and "the prevalence of violence against women and girls", as the four justifications for its decision to frame its provisions in this way.
It is instructive to observe the language and logic of the commission in respect of one of these categories, namely domestic violence. It states: ". . . the violence women suffer is unique and "pervasive, whether it is in the home, or on the street or at work". Is this not an astonishing statement to encounter in a document framed as the direct result of a conflict in which the vast, vast majority of casualties were male?
A clue as to how this nonsense was arrived at may reside in a reference elsewhere in the document to "events held with groups from the women's sector". The document states: "The Northern Ireland Women's Aid Federation, as of 2000, provided refuge to 9.6 times the number of women it had 10 years previously. This violence is a manifestation of women's inequality of status and ineffective access to the legal system".
The document also asserts that the 1996 British Crime Survey revealed that one in three women reported having suffered domestic violence in adult life. In fact, the figure was 26 per cent, but the commission fails to report that the survey also revealed that 23 per cent of men between 30 and 34 years old had at some time experienced assaults by their current or former partners, and concluded that these figures were likely to be representative of the broader male experience, since older men tend not to report such assaults.
The survey's key finding - that in the previous 12 months, 4.2 per cent of both women and men reported they had been assaulted by a current or former partner - is not mentioned in the report of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.
The upshot of all this is that the draft Bill of Rights includes the provision: "The State shall take all appropriate measure to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls whether physical, mental or emotional." We observe, then, that the recommendations of the commission are based on the propaganda of the representatives of one "sector". Remind me, once more, how the Northern conflict came into being.
It may be argued that the rights of men and boys are to be taken for granted. But why, then, cannot the right of women and girls be similarly assumed?
Moreover, the Bill of Rights will be a legal document, binding on all who dispense justice and equality in the "new" Northern Ireland. When those who seek guidance about how to dispense such quantities go to the Bill of Rights in search of it, they will find that those citizens described as women or girls have rights which, by virtues of being explicitly stated, are superior to the rights of citizens described as men or boys.
When the rights of such women or girls come into conflict with the rights of men or boys, there can be no doubt about what the law will require.
jwaters@irish-times.ie