Former Prostituted Woman to Speak on UN Panel
Within the CEDAW Committee’s hall of shame, telling China to decriminalize prostitution holds a prize spot. In a promising turn of events, UN Women, the two-year old agency tasked with handling all-things-women at the UN, will highlight a woman who escaped from prostitution. The “Survivors Forum” is a panel discussion hosted by UN Women this [...]
Where debating stops
As a social scientist I have been taught that morality is merely relative to the time and context. Nothing can be claimed to be objectively True always since truth changes within and between social groups. But as the new PBS documentary “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” potently illustrates, some behaviors [...]
UN Women Director to Run for President of Chile?
Rumors still swirl that UN Women’s director Michelle Bachelet will return to Chile to run again for president in 2013. A recent poll in Chile indicated that 50% would like her to be the next president. Current president Sebastian Pinera said last week that Bachelet will be the candidate of the center-left coalition. Bachelet has [...]
CEDAW Expert Supervillains Keep Hurting Women
Staff from every major, and not so major, UN entity, human rights agency, program and organization showed up yesterday morning in Conference Room 3 of the temporary North Lawn Building at UN Headquarters in New York at a commemorative event for the 30th anniversary of the CEDAW Committee. Later during the evening, the same crowd [...]
Kicking Off 30 Years of Women’s Rights
The 30th Anniversary session of the CEDAW Committee kicked off yesterday in New York at UN Headquarters. After listening to Ms. Silvia Pimentel (Chair of the CEDAW Committee) and Mr. Jan Eliasson (Deputy Secretary-General of the UN) praise the work of CEDAW, the speeches discussing the necessity of advancing women’s political participation around the [...]
UN Women Allowed to Join UNAIDS
When UN Women reached its one year anniversary last year, it was met with a scathing review in The Nation. Long-time UN advocate Barbara Crossette detailed the travails of the new UN agency. Internal issues, such as employee in-fighting, plagued UN Women, as well as external. Backers felt governments and UN higher-ups lacked respect for the women’s agency. Paula Donovan of [...]
UN Elites’ Secret Plans for Global Green Summit
Top UN chiefs recently met to scheme how to use an upcoming Summit on sustainable development to gain control of the global green economy, expand its reach on social policies, and build more UN institutions. But a huge stumbling block is a lack of agreement among countries on the definition of a “green economy,” the [...]
Beijing Women + 20
Women, get your marching boots on! The UN may hold an international women’s conference in 2015 — 20 years after the infamous Beijing Women’s Conference. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Quatar Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al- Nasser introduced the proposal yesterday on International Women’s Day. It will go to the General Assembly for approval, which [...]
The End of the MDGs?
This morning the Secretary General, and Rebeca Grynspan, Associate Administrator of UNDP, and Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Special Adviser on the MDGs, held a press conference to report on the progress towards achieving the MDG’s. The SG described Sachs and Grynspan as his “top development experts and senior advisers.” They cited a report issued this week [...]
US Ratification of CEDAW Focus at World Bank Event
To commemorate International Women’s Day the World Bank in collaboration with the Nordic Trust Fund, the Leadership Conference Education Fund and the UN Foundation, hosted an event on CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) and women’s rights to focus on the success of CEDAW in advancing gender equality in [...]
State Dept Delegation to UN Women Commission Stacked With Abortion Advocates
Yesterday a State Department press release announced the delegation they would be sending to the the 56th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women beginning next week at UN headquarters in New York and running two weeks. The two co-leaders of the delegation are Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations and Melanne Verveer, [...]
UN Women attempts to mark its territory at CSW briefing
While attending a briefing on the upcoming 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women yesterday, it became apparent that UN Women is very concerned with putting on its make-up in the morning. When I think about it, UN Women reminds me of the new girl at school trying desperately to fit in. [...]
UN Women Gets No R-E-S-P-E-C-T
“UN Women is in trouble,” reports Barbara Crossette in The Nation. Her article “UN Women Limps Toward Its First Anniversary” details how the agency is short on money and respect, and big on territorial in-fighting. The failure exposes the blind-side of ideological feminists who insist on preferential treatment as they demand equal footing. Oblivious to [...]
Columbus Day Shenanigans at the UN
UN WOMEN: Right to abortion, right to justice
While many Americans took last Monday off for Columbus day, the Third Committee of the General Assembly at the United Nations was meeting in its 66th session to discuss Item 28 (a,b) concerning the Advancement of Women internationally. Arriving at the UN earlier than usual, we were surprised to find the Third Committee present in [...]
5 UN agencies join to promote universal abortion rights
Under the auspices of condemning the heinous practice of sex selective abortion, 5 UN agencies have issued a statement essentially calling for universal unrestricted abortion. Thanks to Marie Smith for highlighting the following disturbing passages in the document: Various United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies have established that the rights of women and girls [...]
Reducing women to their fertility
Here is a recent post by our friend from the Heritage Foundation, Grace Melton. Grace traces the way consideration of women has been reduced to their role as childbearers throughout the agenda of UNWomen and two recent UN commissions. If this entailed honor and respect for this noble role, their would be less to lament.
Having Another Girl In China: A Woman’s Courage
Recently, we reported on how the United States looked away from a couple suffering because of the one-child policy in China. Here’s a video that puts a face on the stories just like theirs. These women have a courage that only a woman can have. Will UN Women stand behind them in spite of their [...]
UN Women Land Grab
We have just learned that the controversial new super-agency, UN Women, is moving into 84,000 square feet of office space (3 whole floors) at 220 East 42nd Street in New York. The space was previously occupied by the UN Population Fund which is moving to 605 Third Avenue. 84,000 square feet is a lot of [...]
UN Women Goes to Canada
The (controversial) new UN super-women’s agency will open its Toronto office tomorrow, according to the Chronicle Herald.