• Do people belonging to religious minorities have the right to effectively
participate in and be represented on religious advisory bodies? Where
such advisory bodies exist, to whom do they provide counsel?
• Does the Government encourage interfaith and inter-religious dialogue at
all levels? How does it do so? Where communal and sectarian tensions
exist, how does the Government address such matters?
• Where religious education is on the curriculum, what measures are in
place, if any, to promote interfaith and inter-religious understanding and
dialogue?
• Does the constitution or other national legislation declare the State to be
secular and/or officially recognize a religion or religions?
• Is there a requirement that the Head of State or other public officials
belong to a certain religion?
• Is there a requirement to indicate religious affiliation on identity cards?
• What measures are in place to protect holy places, including against
desecration, and to ensure access to them by religious minorities?
• Is there Government or other official support for the repair and maintenance
of religious buildings? Is such support subject to any restrictions?
• Do criteria exist for establishing new religious buildings and are they
agreed to in consultation with representatives of religious minorities or
their institutions? In that regard, are the following issues of importance
for the minority: keeping a geographical distance between different
religious buildings or maintaining a distance between existing religious
buildings and new ones?
B.
Does the situation of women belonging to minorities
require particular attention?
Discrimination against women remains a persistent and universal problem.
However, some women’s problems are compounded by their uniquely
disadvantaged position in society as members of national, racial, ethnic,
religious or linguistic minorities. Women and girls from disadvantaged
minority groups experience multiple and intersectional forms of
discrimination based on both their minority status and their gender. Such
multidimensional discrimination may make them particularly vulnerable to
violations of their rights in public and private life, including in some cases
violence and sexual assault both outside and within their communities.
They may also be subjected to traditional harmful practices, such as female
genital mutilation.
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