Olga Karach during the Award Ceremony of the Bremen Peace Prize on May 31, 2024.

Olga Karach during the Award Ceremony of the Bremen Peace Prize on May 31, 2024.

Speech at the 90th CEDAW Session on Belarus

by Olga Karach

(06.02.2025) Honorable Committee Members,

As the head of the International Center for Civil Initiatives ’Our House’, I appeal to the CEDAW Committee for Action.

Article 2 – Deprivation of Adequate Nutrition

Belarus institutionalizes discriminatory food policies, setting adult women’s nutritional needs below those of six-year-olds. In prisons, women and girls face big malnutrition as essential foods like fruits nuts, and dairy are excluded, leading to long-term health risks.

Article 3 – Suppression of women’s Public Participation

State media ’Belarus today’ has published execution lists targeting women human rights defenders, including myself, Olga Karach and Veronika Tsepkalo. The Belarusian KB labeled 29 women activists, including me, as ’terrorists’ despite our peaceful work. I’ve been falsely labeled as ’extremist’ 19 times and sentenced in absentia to 12 years of prison – without due process or legal representation.

Even in exile, we face transnational repression, as seen in the espionage case of a Lithuanian lawyer recruited by the Belarusian KGB to spy on my organization, ’Our House’ in Lithuania. Women also face child removal, punitive psychiatric confinement, and in prison, political prisoners are stigmatized and forced to wear yellow patches like Jews during the Holocaust.

Article 6 – Forced Labor and Punitive Practices Against Minor Girls as young as 11 years old

Women, including girls from 14 years old, endure forced labor, earning 1 to 5 EURO per month, with punishments like solitary confinement for unmet quotas. Under Article 328, girls as young as 14 face 8-to-10-year sentences in adult penal colonies, suffering abuse and torture.

Thank you.

***

This is a transcript of a speech by Olga Karach held during the 90th CEDAW Session on Belarus on February 6, 2025. Olga Karach currently serves as the head of the Belarusian organization in exile ‘Our House’. A video recording of the speech can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1oopxnDh0Rs.

Olga Karach, Speech at the 90th CEDAW Session on Belarus, February 6, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1oopxnDh0Rs.

Keywords:    ⇒ Belarus   ⇒ Exile   ⇒ Feminism   ⇒ Human Rights   ⇒ Lithuania   ⇒ Peace Movement   ⇒ Women