Category: Equality

Mayors Will Help the UN

We’ve mentioned the World Urban Forum eariler, and it looks like the forum was a success. A group of mayors from the around the world have pledged to support the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

“The mayors have been filmed during the Forum at the Millennium Campaign’s mobile television studio to commit publicly to the global effort to fight poverty and to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

“We firmly believe that local authorities, as the sphere of government closest to the people, can support the United Nations, both in the achievement of the MDGs and in raising awareness among citizens,” said Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, Councillor in Tshwane, South Africa and co-President of UCLG. “

For Some Women, Giving Birth is Orgasmic

In an article in the Times Online, Midwife Katrina Caslake reports on her experience achieving orgasm during childbirth. She says that the keys to achieving pain-free, even orgasmic births is for the woman to relax and allow herself to feel sexy. She has science to back up her claims, too: The same hormones that are involved in love and sex are also involved in childbirth.

The practise of midwifery lost popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, when male doctors were too embarrassed to allow women to feel sexy during childbirth. Since the middle of the last century, midwifery has grown in popularity.

Speak Up

Have you always wanted a way to make awesome advocacy happen? CitizenSpeak is all about making it easy for grassroots organizations to get their word out on the street, or at least the e-street.

“CitizenSpeak is a free email advocacy service for grassroots organizations. Inspired by MoveOn email campaigns, CitizenSpeak provides the same e-advocacy capability at the community level in English and Spanish.”

Canadas Courts Challenge Use of Security Certificates

The Supreme Court of Canada is now facing a constitutional challenge regarding the federal government’s controversial security certificate process. The certificates have been issued by the Canadian Government since 2001 as means of detaining immigrants considered ‘security risks’ to Canada. However, the process offers no justice to detainees as many face imprisonment for years without charges and no access to a fair trial or evidence against them. In some cases there is risk of the person being deported back to their home country, where they face possible torture or even death. The issue has been followed closely by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, but has only recently made breaking news.

The hearings before the Supreme Court began on Tuesday and are expected to last three days. Along with much media attention ,Jim Loney ,an activist recently held hostage in Iraq, has joined a campaign called ‘Freedom Caravan’ which recently made a trek across eastern Ontario to protest the detention of 4 men currently held in Canada.

Less Sweat in Shops

Sweatshops are wretched things, and that is why many organizations don’t like them. Some groups like United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), UNITE!, and as previously mentioned, UNICEF. Alternet has a great article on the state of the anti-sweatshop movement in universities and colleges in the United States. In the past decade, over 200 universities have adopted antisweatshop codes of conduct in response to student protest.

“In collaboration with human rights groups, unions and faculty experts on the apparel industry, campus activists developed the DSP to give universities a mechanism to enforce their antisweatshop codes. With the help of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent monitoring organization with 152 member colleges and universities, USAS has identified a number of factories around the world — particularly in Asia, Mexico, Central America and the United States — that could qualify under these more stringent worker-friendly standards. Alternatively, major brands like Nike could identify one of their major suppliers to specialize in producing clothing for the university market under the terms of the DSP.”