UN General Assembly
1960

73. The report further states that only 175,000 children out of 750,000 are at school and that only one-half of the children progress beyond the primary standard, and there is a serious lack of medical services, with only one doctor per 8,000 persons. 74. One sympathises with the Government of Iraq in having to deal with such difficult problems, one of their problems apparently being the privileged position of the wealthy sheiks and urban land-owners, but having regard to conditions under which people are living in their own country, I suggest that they should not sponsor an item which accuses South Africa of a mass denial of human rights, which in Article 55 of the Charter include social and economic welfare of the inhabitants; that also is a human right, mentioned in Article 55 of the Charter, which we are accused of violating. 75. My delegation has evidence that conditions similar to those in Iraq are also found in some of the other countries of the Middle East that are making charges against South Africa.