New UN health Chief Sets Her Priorities. [The New York Times] Margaret F. C. Chan took office as the World Health Organization's director general, saying her two chief goals are to improve the health of Africans and of women throughout the world. Women face risks during pregnancy and childbirth that make them particularly vulnerable to health problems, said Chan, 59, a former Hong Kong health chief. On the positive side, they can be powerful agents of change for better health. "Women do much more than have babies," Chan said in a statement on the agency's Web site. Speaking to reporters from the health organization's headquarters in Geneva, she added that women were a rising influence in the work force and in their communities — particularly since so many teachers and health care workers were women. The organization's member countries elected Chan as director general in November after the sudden death of Dr. Lee Jong-wook on May 22. At the time of her election, she noted, "the people of Africa carry an enormous and disproportionate burden of ill health and premature death." She told her staff, "poor health and poverty are closely tied, as are better health and the prospects for development."

Gender Equality Benefits Women and Children. [Reuters AlertNet, UK] When women are empowered, children prosper, is the categorical message of this years 'State of the World's Children' Report by UNICEF. Examining the status of women today, the report argues that gender equality produces the 'double dividend' of benefiting both women and children and is 'pivotal to the health and development of families, communities and nations'. The household, the workplace and the political sphere are the three major areas the report identifies where women must have influence in order for poverty to be reduced and for sustainable development to be achieved. 'Women who have access to meaningful, income-producing work are more likely to increase their families' standards of living, leading children out of poverty,' the report concluded.

U.N. Investigated Over 300 Members of U.N. Peacekeeping Missions for Alleged Sexual Exploitation During Past Three Years. [The Associated Press] The United Nations investigated more than 300 members of U.N. peacekeeping missions for alleged sexual exploitation and abuse during the past three years and more than half were fired or sent home. U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Jane Holl Lute said the U.N. has done more in the last two years than ever before to try to combat sex abuse in its 16 peacekeeping missions with over 92,000 personnel, "but we're not satisfied with where we are." With nearly 200,000 people from over 100 countries rotating through the peacekeeping missions every year, some people "are going to behave badly," she told a news conference. "What's different now is ... our determination to stay with this problem ... and constantly improve our ability to deal with it." While allegations of abuse have dogged peacekeeping missions since their inception over 50 years ago, the issue was thrust into the spotlight after the United Nations found in early 2005 that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

Are Prostitutes Human? [American Chronicle] The recent murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich, a small port town in England, prompted varying responses in the British press. As I followed these articles, I became increasingly annoyed. As an ex-prostitute, I found myself resenting all these journalists making easy, specious pronouncements upon a subject they know nothing about. A ‘popular’ view, supposedly liberal and open-minded, on their part, was the advocating of legal brothels to ‘protect’ the women. As I read their views on this topic, I grew from being merely annoyed to deeply offended and angry. Alice Miles, Times journalist, is all for these establishments in her “How We Let Gemma and Tania Down” (Dec. 13, 2006). “Brothels: proper, clean, large-as-you-like, licensed knocking shops, with medical checks and protection for the girls” is what Ms. Miles proposes. What she fails to consider is that legalizing prostitution makes it easier for procurers and pimps and customers to exploit women. Look at Germany and Holland, where sexual trafficking is massive and the few ‘independent’ prostitutes (those who actually benefit from the health care and protection) are extremely rare. It is the same situation in the legal Nevada brothels in the USA: girls are trafficked in by their pimps, who take the money. Ms. Miles envisions ‘clean’ safe brothels but I’m afraid that these only exist in some fairyland somewhere where men don’t control the actions and lives of the prostitutes. Such places don’t stand a chance on this patriarchy of a planet. It would be nice if they did: establishments controlled entirely by the women, places where they have complete say as to working conditions, number of customers, etc. Places where no men make money off their bodies: take all the owners and procurers and pimps and drop their greedy deadweight off a huge cliff and then let women define how brothels should operate. They would not resemble, for example, the current ones in Nevada, with their degrading meat-market line-ups. They would not resemble the ones, worldwide, full of trafficked girls fighting to survive the brutality of beatings and terror tactics to keep them compliant and performing so as to bring in the money for their ‘owners.’ They certainly would bear no resemblance to the flesh markets with enslaved youngsters in them, practically babies, that are standard fare in Thailand, India, Cambodia, etc. With 60% of the world’s prostitutes being minors, brothels are places where millions of girls who are mere children are gang raped everyday—by local men, by sex tourists, by the world’s militaries, and by UN Peacekeepers (‘Rape-Bringers,’ I call them) who significantly fuel the sex trade wherever they go since troubled, war-torn places and conflict zones create destitute, vulnerable girls. The entire sex industry, globally, would be quite different if we prostitutes completely controlled it and no men made money off of us.