Human rights in the Marshall Islands and chronic domestic violence" and other human rights problems included "child abuse, sex trafficking, and lack of legal provisions protecting workers' rights." As a member state of the United Nations the Marshall Islands is subject to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process that involves a review of human rights records. By the time of its UPR in 2010, the Marshall Islands, among other states in the Asia Pacific, was reluctant to form a National Human Rights Institution despite recommendations for its establishment from the Human Rights Council. However, in 2015 the Marshall Islands passed legislation to set up a
Apostolic Prefecture of the Marshall Islands was established as Mission sui juris of Marshall Islands, on territory split off from the then Apostolic Vicariate of New Pomerania (mainly New Britain, in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea). On April 5, 1923, the independent mission was suppressed, its territory being merged into the then Apostolic Vicariate of Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands. On April 23, 1993, Pope John Paul II split the former Diocese of Carolines-Marshalls into the Apostolic Prefecture of the Marshall Islands and the Diocese of Caroline Islands. In 2007, Father James Gould, apostolic prefect, resigned. Father Raymundo Sabio, a Filipino missionary, was chosen