Source: Florida Action Committee 10/16/23
Today, our FAC President Gail Colletta addressed the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva Switzerland to call out the United States’ failure to address the inhumane Registry scheme and specifically the practice of allowing states to create Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORRs). Gail had only two-minutes to define the problem and ask the UN to hold the United States accountable for the violation of numerous human rights.
While there is more that needs to be done to abolish the Registry entirely, her presence today ensured that the single issue of housing restrictions will now be included in the UN report to the United States, and that means we are expecting the US to provide answers in a response to the UN, of actions that will be taken to resolve the violation of human rights caused by the SORRs.
I understand the need to chisel away at the granite block that is the entire registry. It seems a very slow worldwide initiative needs undertaken just to address a single aspect of the registry, albeit residency restrictions. Basically in itself, even if all the residency restrictions dissappeared overnight that still wouldn’t stop the entire registry. What’s needed is an entire shift away from blanket black and white sexual offense laws in the first place. That should be at the core of any sexual reform, not just the elimination of the registry. I don’t understand why people continue to allow teenagers who are very much sexually active to be paraded around as sweet innocent victims when they get caught doing something sexual. They aren’t prepubescent children, they know what they’re doing. Someone help me understand this and why Noone fights to change these laws.
Wow, the Geneva Convention in Switzerland is big. It receives A LOT of attention, from not only the press in general but also those countries being questioned) in this case the United States). Thank you Ms. Colletta!
This is significant. The more international attention that is drawn to the registry the better. It was, after all, international attention and criticism that helped move the Nation away from the Jim Crow policies. It took more than this pressure, but the international community did help.
Often, the US forgets that it is the 21st century, and that this nation is part of an increasingly global community of nations. The US is not an isolated State at the edge of “Civilization”. It never actually was that, but any illusion that that was ever true is…nearly dead.
Success on a National level is more, and more dependent on being successful in an International marketplace of products, services and political policy. An idea that Russia is being reminded of right now, in response to their policies.
While the registry will never provoke an international response anything like Russia is experiencing, i’m hoping bringing the registry to its end can be achieved through lesser responses. This makes Wall street, for example, spend even 1 second of their valuable time wondering if Foreignlandia may use the registry as an excuse to drive a less attractive deal… they’ll have to wonder if keeping the registry is worth even a tiny risk of this ever happening. It will not be… for even a 0.001% chance that they will have to spend 2 minutes pointing out to Foreignlandia that they don’t really care about this, they’re just using it as a excuse… Will be far too great a cost.
I think that, when it comes to the U.N., we should really manage our expectations. “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” as it were. We should not forget the U.N’s role in fomenting sex hysteria in the first place and its continuing role especially in such things as “sex offender” tracking across international borders or fanning the flames of grossly exaggerated “child trafficking.” Like INTERPOL or the EU, they are not our friends and we should not harbor any illusions that, when our injustices are made clear to them, that they will do anything or that they CAN do anything about it. The U.N. has had a many decades long run where it was perceived as being a liberal force for good, a hopelessly naive perception, especially of those on the left. They were the ultimate feel-good organization, especially with UNICEF who have done some really terrible things to kids. With both China and Russia on the Security Council and the Human Rights Council filled with some of the biggest violators of human rights, the U.N. is a nearly-complete farce at this point with very little influence over the U.S. anyway. The value of speaking before the U.N. is in the media coverage that it generates, not in the possibility of the U.N. doing anything about it.