Human Rights

Universal periodic review

Universal Periodic Review of Germany

Intervention by New Zealand, 2 February 2009

New Zealand welcomes the delegation of Germany to the Human Rights Council. We value this opportunity to engage with Germany on its human rights situation.

We welcome Germany’s continued commitment to the rights of the child, including the provision of free education for all children. However, the Special Rapporteur on Education has commented that action is required to overcome social disparities and to ensure equitable, equal and inclusive educational opportunities for every child, in particular those with disabilities. We understand that the percentage of children with disabilities attending mainstream schools in Germany is significantly lower than in many of its EU neighbours.
 
We acknowledge the steps that Germany has already taken in this area, as set out in paragraph 66 of its report, and that work is underway to consider how to make the education system more inclusive. What measures are being considered to provide children with disabilities access to an inclusive mainstream education and to provide mainstream schools with the tools to respond to the needs of children with disabilities.

• New Zealand recommends that Germany adopt time-bound measures to increase children with disabilities’ access to inclusive education in mainstream schools, and that it ensure funding for the specific services necessary to help these students reach their full learning potential and participate along with other students.

Our second question and recommendation relates to same-sex partnerships. We note from the Stakeholder report that persons in same-sex partnerships continue to face discrimination due to stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

• What steps are being taken to combat these stereotypes and discriminatory practices?

• New Zealand recommends that Germany strengthen measures to counter discriminatory attitudes, for example by including sexual orientation and gender identity in public education and equality programmes and initiatives. We further recommend that German law on transexuality be modified promptly to facilitate registration of a change of gender on official documents, without requiring transsexuals to divorce, in line with the decision of the Constitutional Court.

Germany’s report also highlights the Federal Government’s Gender Mainstreaming strategy adopted in 2000. New Zealand welcomes efforts to mainstream gender but is concerned at the indication in the Stakeholders’ report that gender mainstreaming is now receiving less direct attention within the responsible Federal Ministry and that the intra-government working group on gender mainstreaming may no longer be operational.

• What steps are being taken to oversee the implementation of the Federal Government’s gender mainstreaming strategy?

• In light of the recognition in Germany’s report that more needs to be done to secure equal opportunities and representation of women, New Zealand recommends that the government continue to prioritise gender mainstreaming and to ensure that appropriate mechanisms are in place to implement, monitor and review the Government’s strategy.

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