From 29 Feb.29 to 9 March, representatives of member states of the United Nations spent two weeks working on ways to improve the situation of rural women throughout the world. At the same time civil society women came in their thousands, bringing their concerns and experience of specific situations and aspects of this ongoing process. The official negotiations by governments were accompanied by over 300 NGO events. Boys and men also took part in the numerous activities and discussions.

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Two weeks ago I welcomed Cecilia O’Dwyer ibvm from the Spanish Province to New York, where she will work for the next few months as an intern at Loreto’s UN Office.  She arrived hot on the heels of my previous intern, Clare Condon, from Australia.  I asked both women to explain why they had wanted to take on such a challenge.  Their thoughtful and intelligent response to this question clearly indicates their competence and suitability for the position.   Anne Kelly.  February 2012.

Cecilia O’Dwyer writes

Greetings from New York! Cecilia O´Dwyer, Spanish Province, here.  I began an internship at the NGO office in late January 2012.  When I was thinking about ways of making a year´s sabbatical enriching and helpful, I thought about the possibility of doing an internship at the Loreto UN Office and got the go ahead to do it.  So thanks to all concerned.

Why am I interested in doing an internship at the UN? When I ask myself about ways of enhancing life for all human beings and the life systems of our planet, I know there are many ways of doing it.  We participate in this endeavor around the Institute, usually at local level.

When we set up the NGO at the UN in 2002, I understood it as a way of being present where our vision and values could be reflected at a global level. The growth in consciousness of the dignity of all human beings and the systems which allow us to survive is expressed in the principles and objectives elaborated at the UN, which is the only possibility of some semblance of world government available to us at the moment.  As part of civil society which claims its voice at this level, our Institute, along with many other NGOs, has chosen to be part of this initiative, which means we try to contribute to the thinking, processing and elaboration of the principles and strategies we consider important for our world at this point in history.

Now, one of the main challenges I have found has been working out how to relate local concerns to what is happening at the global level and integrating both into everyday life.  It has been difficult and truthfully I haven´t achieved a satisfactory understanding of how it all connects.  One of my objectives, therefore, during this internship, is to do some ground work on how religious congregations and other NGOs are dealing with this same question.  I am looking forward to learning from them about this and other aspects of their work.  It will strengthen my understanding of what it means to be a global citizen and how one small contribution from a specific local area on this planet is part of the whole evolving dynamic of humankind.

Clare Condon at the UN, New York

Clare Condon writes

After completing studies in Political Science and working in the social service sector, I was excited to start an internship at the United Nations and gain greater insight into the connection between politics and social welfare.  Working on global issues of poverty, gender and contemporary politics for three months at the UN headquarters in New York was a real privilege.

The lecture on the Palestinian Question delivered by Kalida Rashiri, the Modern Arab Studies Professor from Columbia University, was one of the most powerful sessions I attended during my time at the UN and a refreshingly frank illumination of one of our most complex contemporary political issues.  I was lucky enough to hear Ban Ki-Moon address the need for greater NGO and member state cooperation, to listen to the US Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, Melanie Verveer, stress the urgent need to invest in women and girls, and to see leaders such as the UK’s David Cameron discuss their nation’s current state of affairs in the General Assembly for Leaders Week 2011.  I was also hugely impressed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Gutierres, who spoke with honesty, compassion and intelligence on the issue of forced migration.

These experts showed that policy transcends the international sphere to affect communities at a local level, and my work centred on a range of these policy issues.  I created presentations on the UN for school-aged audiences, wrote articles on Human Trafficking and other issues, assisted with writing interventions and minutes for committee groups, as well as taking part in many NGO meetings.   As part of my internship, I was fortunate to attend the 64^th Annual UN DPI (Department of Public Information) Conference in Bonn, Germany. This conference on Sustainable Societies; Responsive Citizens was an excellent introduction to the UN process, and I subsequently wrote a report on this experience for Loreto’s global networks.

I learnt a great deal about NGOs and their role within the largely state-centric UN body.  Advocacy is a central part of the role of NGOs at the UN, as they lobby states and use their particular expertise to influence international policy.  States don’t want to hear NGOs recite the gravity of the world’s problems; they are looking for solutions.  In that way, with the right suggestions, NGOs can be very influential.

 Clare Condon Loreto Intern at the United Nations

 Slavery is a word we associate with antiquated and deeply unjust societies, yet for the 15 to 30 million slaves living in 2011 it is a daily reality. Characterized by a denial of self determination, these enslaved individuals are forced to work for little or no pay under the control of another person. Trafficking of persons plays a large role in modern day slavery, with 75-80% of all human trafficking victims being sold into the sex trade.[1] Other areas of exploitation include forced labor, domestic servitude and begging syndicates. Slavery exists outside the sphere of legal or social governance and the fact that this system remains part of our global economic and social structure is rarely discussed openly. Tens of millions of trafficking victims lack access to education and healthcare, live under threat of brutal beatings and suffer a broad denial of the most basic human rights.

Trafficking of persons is a complex issue, yet often involves vulnerable people being coerced from ‘source countries’ to ‘destination countries’ with the promise of regular employment and a better life.  ‘Source countries’ are generally economically depressed regions, particularly areas in Eastern Europe and Asia. 

The globalization of world markets, movement and economies has led to an increasingly streamlined system of slavery.  The sex trafficking that targets vulnerable people, particularly women and girls from poor areas, seeks to fuel and fill demand in wealthy nations. These slaves are often promised employment in cafes or businesses, and are then broken physically and psychologically in order to make a profit for their ‘owner’. It is an incredibly violent existence, yet the clients who visit brothels and sex workers support the human traffickers by paying for a service which harms and entraps. Raising awareness of this largely hidden issue is the first step in addressing the problem, as our knowledge and choices are incredibly powerful.

These choices extend to seemingly innocuous products we may purchase every day. Slavery and human trafficking play an invisible role in the processing of raw materials in many goods, from clothing to coffee, at the level of production which is far removed from anything consumers see first-hand. A key example is the cocoa industry. Child labour, indentured service, human trafficking and slavery all remain part of cocoa production in many east African nations, particularly the Ivory Coast. Workers, including children, are taken from their homes and families and set to work to fulfill high quotas and are punished with violence and cruelty.

While policies and laws have been created to address this problem, they have not gone far enough. The Harkin-Engel Protocol was signed in the United States in 2001 with the aim to end child labour in the cocoa industry. However, as this Protocol commemorates its tenth anniversary, it has not achieved its most basic aims and children are still working in terrible conditions. Multinational companies benefit from interconnected markets, and while some have opted to source fair trade raw materials and set long term performance goals, many of the largest companies have not. This includes Hershey’s, the largest producer of chocolate in the United States. It is key to know that the products we consume come from a globalised marketplace and that our choices affect people millions of miles away. Buying certified fair trade products when available is an important step in asserting the value of human life, dignity and freedom. 

The UN NGO community is currently evaluating the next steps in the global fight against the amorphous trade in human beings. Slavery and trafficking are explicitly addressed in the UN Charter of Human Rights and the NGO community is guided by the ‘Three Ps’ in its work combating trafficking: Prevent, Protect, Prosecute. NGOs worldwide have created and worked on various initiatives to practically impact the trafficking of persons trade. By partnering with airlines and hotels, NGOs are teaching staff key ways in which to identify people who may be being trafficking. These lessons include being aware of people who seem vulnerable and who may have someone speaking consistently on their behalf.  Another initiative is the Blue Heart Campaign, a visible symbol of solidarity for those forced into slavery and an acknowledgment of the reality of slavery and human trafficking in our society, similar to the AIDs Red Ribbon campaign in its aim to raise awareness and remove social stigma. 

  Worldwide, governments are increasingly paying attention to slavery and human trafficking. The TIP (Trafficking In Persons) Report has been an important step, as it openly evaluates the progress made by countries in addressing and eradicating the practice of trafficking.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated when releasing the 2011 TIP: ‘Every year, we come together to release this report, to take stock of our progress, to make suggestions, and to refine our methods. Today, we are releasing a new report that ranks 184 countries, including (the United States).’[2] Bringing these issues into the light, into legal frameworks and into the public consciousness is the only way to end the global slave trade and change the lives of the millions of people living without freedom.

Visit these valuable resources to learn more about slavery, human trafficking and what you can do

A wonderful interactive website where you can see how many slaves play a role in producing the products you consume:

http://slaveryfootprint.org/   

Learn more about which multinational companies are working towards fair-trade cocoa production:

http://www.raisethebarhershey.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/HersheyReport2011.pdf

Sign on to the Blue Heart Campaign: http://www.unodc.org/blueheart/en/about-us.html

Watch this confronting yet very real video representation of the reality of human trafficking and the sex trade:

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DBdW05BC4emw

Mary Ward Social Centre works on programs to combat human trafficking in northern India. Read more about these initiatives: http://www.ibvm.org/index.php?option=com_content&;view=article&id=499:loreto-sisters-combat-human-trafficking&catid=136:the-un-ngos&Itemid=181

At the United Nations, human trafficking comes under the umbrella of the Office of Drugs and Crime. Learn more:

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/faqs.html

The Palermo Protocol is the UN’s main document on anti-trafficking. Read the full text: http://www.uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions/dcatoc/final_documents_2/convention_%20traff_eng.pdf

These comprehensive web resources detail how you can get involved in campaigns to end human trafficking and slavery:

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

http://www.slaverymap.org/ 

http://acrath.org.au/  

http://www.humantrafficking.org/               

                                                                                                        Clare Condon, UN Headquarters New York

United Nations Conference - Sustainable Societies, Responsive Citizens

Bonn, Germany 3-5 September 2011 - Please download pdf summary