The United Kingdom violates women’s rights in Northern Ireland by unduly restricting their access to abortion, a report by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) said on Friday.
“Denial of abortion and criminalisation of abortion amounts to discrimination against women because it is a denial of a service that only women need. And it puts women in horrific situations,” the committee’s vice-chairwoman, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, said in a statement.
“The situation in Northern Ireland constitutes violence against women that may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” she said.
In a response to the report, the United Kingdom government said it did not accept women in Northern Ireland had been subject to grave and systematic violations of their rights.
