CARACAS, May 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. sanctions against Venezuela are undermining women's rights, a Venezuelan official said Thursday at a UN meeting.

The unilateral coercive measures of the United States "have a direct impact on the lives and rights of the women who suffer them," said Diva Guzman, Venezuelan Minister of People's Power for Women and Gender Equality, when addressing the 85th session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, being held in Geneva, Switzerland.

The sanctions "make it difficult" to develop and implement policies to promote gender equality, said Guzman, denouncing them as a "tool of neo-colonialism" to violate "sovereignty, self-determination, non-intervention, and the universal and indivisible guarantee of human rights."

Venezuelan government institutions have promoted the "active participation" of women with "democratic values," Guzman told the committee, which is made up of independent experts that monitor the implementation of a UN convention to eliminate discrimination against women.