Washington -- Trafficking and women’s
health issues are among the priority items for the U.S.
delegation at the 52nd Session of the Commission on the
Status of Women (CSW).
In her remarks at the opening of the session
on February 25, Ambassador Patricia Brister, who is leading
the U.S. delegation, emphasized the U.S. commitment to fighting
human trafficking.
The United States, she said, has obligated
more than $528 million to combat international trafficking
in persons since fiscal year 2001. Another $79 million was
committed in 2007 to fund 180 anti-trafficking programs
in more than 90 countries.
Aware that trafficking is also a problem
inside the United States, the U.S. government has spent
$23 million in 2007 on domestic programs to fight trafficking.
The Department of Justice continues to increase its anti-trafficking
task forces: 42 such entities now operate in 25 states.
Although trafficking for sexual exploitation
represents about two-thirds of transnational human trafficking,
labor exploitation is another important component, Brister
said. To help discourage this type of trafficking, the United
States is devising strategies to deny access to markets
for products made through forced labor.
In an interview with America.gov, Brister
said the United States is not planning to introduce any
new resolutions to the commission in 2008.
Brister, who has led the U.S. delegation
to the Status of Women Commission meetings since 2003, said
a major triumph came in 2005, when the commission adopted
the U.S.-presented resolution “Eliminating Demand
for Trafficked Women and Girls for All Forms of Exploitation.”
The resolution calls for governments to take appropriate
measures to eliminate demand for trafficked women and girls,
criminalize human trafficking and address the root factors
of trafficking, including poverty and gender inequality.
“Passing resolutions here is not easy,”
Brister told America.gov in a phone interview from the U.S.
United Nations Mission in New York City. “I thought
that [the 2005 resolution] was a monumental resolution.”
HEALTH AND GENDER EQUALITY
Access to adequate health care is vital
if women are to achieve gender equality Brister told America.gov.
“Generally women have more care responsibilities
for family members,” she said. “Consequently,
anything we do to help that situation certainly helps women.”
Of health care issues facing women, obstetric
fistula is among the most devastating. The result of prolonged
or obstructed labor, a fistula is a tear between a woman’s
vagina and/or bladder that allows urine or feces to pass
uncontrolled into the vagina. The condition is considered
a disgrace in many countries, leading to social isolation;
and some husbands will desert wives who suffer from the
condition.
Brister said the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) recently announced a new $70 million,
five-year program to prevent and treat obstetric fistula
in developing countries. The program also will promote increased
community understanding of the condition.
NEW EMPHASIS ON STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST
WOMEN
On the first day of the CSW session, U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon kicked off a 15-year global
campaign to end violence against women, saying “at
least one out of every three women is likely to be beaten,
coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.”
Violence against women impedes economic
and social growth, Ban said. The campaign, he said, recognizes
that women and girls “have the right to live free
of violence. ... It is a campaign to stop the untold cost
that violence against women inflicts on all humankind.”
Established in 1946, the Commission on the
Status of Women is a functional commission of the United
Nations Economic and Social Council, dedicated exclusively
to gender equality and the advancement of women.
Forty-five member states of the United Nations
serve as members of the commission at any one time. Members
are elected for a term of four years and represent an equitable
geographical distribution.
Every year, the commission members gather
at U.N. headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on
gender equality, identify challenges and formulate concrete
policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women
worldwide. The 2008 session is being held February 25 through
March 7.
For additional information, see the Web
site of the U.S.
Mission to the United Nations and USAID’s Web
site for Maternal
and Child Health.
Jane Morse / Staff Writer
###
Print This Page
ESPAÑOL