United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident co-ordinator Maria Ribeiro yesterday called for observance of human rights in the country, saying Parliament plays a critical role in ensuring that Zimbabweans enjoy those rights. BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA Ribeiro said this during a courtesy call on the chairperson of the Parliamentary Thematic Committee on Human Rights, Sydney Sekeramayi. “Parliament has a very important role in terms of ensuring human rights are enshrined in the Constitution, and also to ensure that the treaties that Zimbabwe has signed up to are promoted,” Ribeiro said. “We have only 10 years to ensure that sustainable development goals (SDGs) are attained by 2030, and, therefore, we need to ensure that no one is left behind in terms of promotion of human rights, which is a key element in ensuring the attainment of SDGs,” she said. The United Nations SDGs include the rights to health, education, environment, gender equity, and several other rights that people must enjoy in order for countries to achieve sustainable development. Zimbabwe is signatory to several UN and African Union Charters like the African Union Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which stipulates that every country must observe human rights. However, the United States and the United Kingdom recently threatened to impose more sanctions on Zimbabwe due to its failure to respect human rights. Ribeiro said some UN agencies were already working with Parliament to ensure that children’s rights are observed. “We have different programmes with the Parliament of Zimbabwe on child rights. We also have discussed the opportunity of us as the UNDP being able to provide resource materials to the communities in the country so that they have access to different resources from across the globe,” she said. Ribeiro said as long as the human right challenges continued in the country, Zimbabwe could not move forward. lFollow Harriet on Twitter @harrietchikand1