Philip Guston (Canada), Gladiators, 1940. In May 2021, the executive director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and the UN high representative for disarmament affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, wrote an article urging governments to cut excessive military spending in favour of increasing spending on social and economic development. Their wise words were not heard at all. To […]
Tlaleng Mofokeng, the just-appointed UN special rapporteur for physical and mental health. Dr T, as she’s known, is a reproductive health expert as well as an advocate for legalizing prostitution, a stance that has alarmed global opponents of decriminalization.
A detail from a mural being painted on a memorial for victims of Guatemala’s civil war, San Juan Comalapa, 2018. As UN-led global commemorations push ahead on women’s rights and equality in 2020, a set of six “action coalition” themes was announced by UN Women. Not everyone is happy with the topics. RYAN BROWN/UN WOMEN
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
A coalition of civil society organizations is petitioning UN Women, which is devoted to promoting gender equality worldwide, to think twice about supporting the decriminalization of prostitution, as UN preparations begin to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing women’s rights conference in 2020.
A group of civil society organizations is warning that a growing global movement to decriminalize and rebrand prostitution as “sex work” could lead to more, not less, violence against the world’s most vulnerable women and girls.
