Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1gendersoft022508.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 25 -- As the UN on Monday launched its Campaign to End Violence Against Women, in the lobby of UN Headquarters, soft porn remained for sale. At the newsstand next to the elevator to the Secretary-General's offices on the building's 38th floor, titles such as Curve and Smooth and King, along with Dirty South, were on display, with oiled-up women vamping for the camera.
Following a press conference at noon at which time apparently did not permit Inner City Press to ask this question despite a hand raised high throughout the question and answer period, the question was put to the UN's Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, Assistant Secretary-General Rachel N. Mayanja. "I am glad you are raising it," she told Inner City Press. "I am very appalled. I had already raised it to the Department of Management and had been assured they were going to ask them to take it down."
Inner City Press asked how long ago the request had been made to the Department of Management, headed by Under Secretary General Alicia Barcena. "At least six months ago," Ms. Mayanja said. "I am going to go back to them. It should be removed."
While the sale of soft porn on the newsstand in the United Nations lobby may raise First Amendment issues, it appears to be the UN's position that while the UN is in the United States, it is international territory to which the U.S. Constitution does not apply. Perhaps then it is Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that has constrained the UN from removing the pornography from the newsstand it licenses in its lobby. Recently, the Department of Management and Ms. Barcena have had no problem condemning journalistic coverage of a death at the UN as causing "complete shock and outrage," as being "insensitive" and "clearly transgress[ing] accepted boundaries of professional journalism." Soft porn which the UN's own Special Adviser on Gender Issues six months ago asked the Department of Management to have removed, however, has generated no such shock or outrage within the Department of Management, nor apparently even a letter to the newsstand.
Footnote: to the UN's credit, even when time or a moderator deny a journalist a question, most (but not all) UN officials are willing to slow down and provide at least some answer to a question, if a reporter is persistent enough. The matter of soft porn in the lobby is one that Inner City Press has wanted to ask ASG Mayanga about for some time. And despite obstacles on Monday, the question was asked, and now we'll see what happens. Watch, if not the UN lobby, this site.
