The Netherlands hosted a conference with governments and the financial sector on human trafficking and slavery, June 2019. Sexual extortion, or “sextortion,” the author says, is a crime against humanity that is not only part of human trafficking transactions but is also found in other arenas of life, from academia to the workplace.
Rosemary DiCarlo, the highest-ranking US official at the UN, is the first person to lead the newly created Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Being the first woman in the post, she said, is a “heavy burden,” as she acts as a model for aspiring men and women at the organization. JOE PENNEY
President Trump with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, at the 74th session of the General Assembly, Sept. 24, 2019. Melania Trump is in the center. The US is blocking progress on women’s reproductive rights globally. ARIANA LINDQUIST/UN PHOTO
It did not take long after the 74th General Assembly session opened this fall for the Trump team to signal that its strategy in key United Nations meetings would be to act as uncooperative and obstructive as possible, especially on human-rights agendas.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former American ambassador to Ukraine who testified in the US impeachment hearings recently, was attacked in her testimony in real time by President Trump on Twitter. He attacked a female White House adviser, also on Twitter.
One of the most popular activities at the Russian-African summit in Sochi in late October was trying out the virtual reality booth with Russian rifles. President Putin wants investments and closer friendships in Africa, while the United States takes a back seat. JOE PENNEY
At the Nairobi summit marking the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population Development, a session focusing on indigenous women and girls featured Tarcila Rivera Zea Chirapaq of Chirapaq, a nonprofit group in Lima, Peru.
NAIROBI, Kenya — More than 6,000 delegates in the population development sector are gathering in the Kenyan capital here this week to renew the promise made to girls and women 25 years ago in Cairo.
The intensifying controversy over decriminalizing “sex work” has prompted the head of UN Women to declare its neutrality on the subject, possibly further enflaming the dispute as preparations marking women’s rights begin for 2020. CREATIVE COMMONS
Ambassador Karen Pierce of Britain in the Security Council with Riyad Mansour, center, Palestine’s envoy to the UN, May 15, 2018. Britain’s theme for its Council presidency is the effects of conflict on ordinary people, not a controversial issue. ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
Refugees, above, from the territory of Western Sahara have been living in Tindouf, Algeria, for decades. Western Sahara is the last colonial outpost in Africa, now occupied by Morocco. Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton tried to resolve the situation, but his departure from the White House leaves the territory’s future seriously adrift, the author says.
Scenes from a UN women, peace and security in Mali event, with Margot Wallstrom, Sweden’s foreign minister, one of the speakers, Oct. 22, 2015. Wallstrom, who created the world’s first feminist foreign policy, has left the Swedish ministry after five whirlwind years. Her “political engagement,” she said in an interview with PassBlue, is hardly over. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN
