The General Assembly: Turtle Bay’s daily roundup of U.N. news

Women’s rights

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told government delegates and activists here Friday that violence against women remains a "global pandemic" and that their "subjugation" constitutes "a threat to the national security of the United States."
Speaking on the final day of a two-week U.N. conference on women’s rights, Clinton called on U.N. member states live up to their obligations to expand opportunities for women, and end practices that subject them to discrimination and violence.

"Women and girls are bought and sold to settle debts and resolve disputes," she told delegates the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. "They are raped as both a tactic and a prize of war. They are beaten as punishment for disobedience and as a warning to other women who might assert their rights."

Friday’s event was scheduled to review progress on the 1995 Beijing Declaration, a landmark document that sets out the economic, social and political rights for women. Clinton, who attended the Beijing conference as first lady, received a standing ovation from a crowd that included former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Chelsea Clinton.

In her speech, Clinton cited evidence that women had made progress since Beijing, gaining greater access to education, employment and health care. But she said that "opportunity remains out of reach" for millions of women and girls.

"Women are still the majority of the world’s poor, the uneducated, the unhealthy, the unfed," she said. "In too many places women are treated not as full and equal human beings with their own rights and aspirations, but as lesser creatures."

The U.S. faced criticism from Amnesty International, which called on the Obama administration to set up an Office of Maternal Health to address "soaring" number of maternal deaths in the United States. The rights group said that maternal deaths in the United States are greater than almost any other industrialized countries, and that one in five woman has no access to health insurance.

"Mothers die not because the United States can’t provide good care, but because it lacks the political will to make sure good care is available to all women," Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.

Clinton said that the U.S. is seeking to seeking to reduce levels of maternal and child mortality globally, citing the $63 billion Global Health Initiative. She also cited Friday’s adoption of a U.S.-sponsored resolution calling for greater action to slash maternal mortality rates.

Clinton praised the United Nations for appointing new U.N. special representative for sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallstrom. The U.N. is also planning to search for prominent woman to oversee a newly established superagency to promote women’s political and social rights and economic empowerment.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that more than 70 percent of women experience some form of violence during their lifetime, primarily in attacks by an "intimate partner." But he said women also subject to sexual trafficking, forced marriage, and "so-called honor killings." "We sometimes hear that such practices are a matter of culture," he said. "They are not. They are abuses and they are criminal."

UNDispatch — a U.N. advocacy blog funded by the U.N. Foundation — published a list of about 30 potential candidates for the U.N. superagency.

"Guessing who might lead this entity has become something of a parlor game. The four most rumored candidates are Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile; Winnie Byanyima, a Ugandan who serves as Director of the UN Development Programme Gender Team; Geeta Rao Gupta, a dual U.S.-Indian national who is President of the International Center for Research on Women; and Asha-Rose Migiro, the Deputy Secretary General and former foreign minister of Tanzania."

Iraq

The U.N.’s top envoy in Baghdad, Ad Melkert, said that there are no initial signs of widespread fraud in Iraq’s election, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

North Korea

The North Korea government, starved for foreign currency, has imposed a rent increase on foreign embassies, the United Nations and other international organizations, the Associated Press reports. The move comes as the United Nations is planning to expand its development activities in North Korea, after years of inactivity.

Human rights

Two new candidates have jumped into the race for the top U.N. human rights post at U.N. headquarters, according to a New York-based non-profit group that tracks U.N. elections.

Piet de Klerk, a Dutch diplomat who served as the Netherlands’ ambassador at large for human rights from 2003 to 2007, and Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro of Brazil, who served as a U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in myanmar (Burma) from 2000 to 2008. See Turtle Bay‘s coverage of the contest.