Meg's update: October 13th - 28th, 2008

The monthly meeting on Working Group on Girls, an NGO of UNICEF is preparing very early for 2009 CSW 53 international meeting on "The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS. I have signed up on the Advocacy Task Force, the first duty of which is to identify the mission representative intended to visit, and from there make appointments convenient for the person to be visited. My areas of responsibility are: Zambia and Cambodia. During the past weeks, I have been gathering data from SADC, a consortium of some fifteen countries, of which Zambia is one of them. It is likely that the CSW 53 representative will come through this group. The purpose of the visit when it happens is to learn what is being done for the Girl-Child in Zambia, and to make girls more visible, and represent their issues from our perspective. I will be doing the same for Cambodia, gathering relevant data from the ASEAN group of Southeast Asia Nations. Trying to connect with the right person carries with it a good deal of frustrations as telephone calls are promised, but not returned, office personnel transfers your call to other departments that end in the black hole, etc. But continue to try, we must and will continue to do.
Meg

Working Group on Trafficked Children - Oct. 14th
This is another Task Force I am a member of. We meet monthly sharing information on particular areas we research. I was asked to report on efforts being made by the countries of Belarus and Bulgaria to stem trafficking within and outside of their countries. Both countries are in Tier 2 as reported in the 2008 Trafficking of Persons Report compiled by the U.S. Dept. of State. These countries have made some progress in this area, but not yet up to the agreed standard. Another member gave a most interesting and comprehensive report on Human Organ Trafficking as evidenced globally. Children & Armed Conflict was another sharing with a list of resources presented for reference. A telling power-point presentation was shown at the meeting on "The Media's Role in Sexualizing Our Children". A frightening reality!