By Jean Christou
CYPRUS must improve the awareness of racial discrimination among the public and the judiciary, a UN Committee has said.
In it latest report on Cyprus, the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination said it was concerned that members of the public may not be sufficiently aware of the relevant Convention on the issue.
The committee reached its conclusion after noting that there were no reports of racial discrimination brought to the attention of the authorities apart for certain complaints made by foreign maids to the Ombudsman. Most of those complaints related to terms of employment, the report said.
“The lack of information on complaints lodged by foreign housemaids as well as the absence of lawsuits in courts claiming racial discrimination and the absence of communications filed with the Committee, might indicate that awareness of the Convention was not high among judges and lawyers,” the report said.
It suggests Cyprus consider measures for improving awareness of the convention and associated legal and administrative remedies, and that lawyers and administrators be supplied with information on the Convention and on available remedies.
The Committee also suggested that Cyprus “may wish to avail itself” of any advice and assistance which the UN could provide on the setting up of a national human rights institution.
As one of 150 states party to the convention, Cyprus must provide periodic summaries to the 18-member committee on national efforts to implement the convention.
A three-person delegation must also be on hand to answer questions raised by Committee experts.
One of the Cypriot experts told the Committee that the courts had heard cases involving foreign maids and relating to citizenship, refusal of entry and expulsion.
“However the government did not consider such cases to pertain to racial discrimination,” the report said.
But the Committee is still asking the government to report in the next period what steps will be taken to implement recommendations made to remedy the procedure for the employment of housemaids in Cyprus.
The Committee also praised Cyprus for measures taken to stop trafficking in women, the new bill on political asylum and penalisation for the expression of racial ideas in the electronic media.
One foreign expert on the Committee said that in the present world economic order and the process of globalisation it was “strange” to receive information that in the last two years, as a result of increased economic activity, labour shortages had been experienced in almost all economic sectors of Cyprus.
