Crown Princess Mary as Patron of the United Nations Population Fund

[dazzling]

PROGRAM OF VISITS TO GENEVA

Thursday, November 6

Kl. 10:00
Crown Princess participates in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe region (UNECE) and the UN women's organization (UN WOMEN) conference "Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls for Sustainable Development in the ECE region" and speaks at the opening of the conference.
Palais des Nations.

Kl. 12:00
Crown Princess participates in the working lunch with representatives from UN agencies, in particular working with SRHR challenges in Geneva and Nordic UN ambassadors. During lunch will present challenges to promote women's rights, safety and opportunities will be discussed.

Kl. 15:30
Crown Princess will deliver opening remarks at the meeting "Speaking up on silent speech - How to address sexual violence against women and girls in conflict situation." The meeting focuses on the difficult conditions under which refugee women and girls are in and is organized by the Danish Mission to the UN in cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Palais des Nations.

Source: www.kongehuset.dk

[Roskilde]

Mary landed this morning in Geneva and has participated in meetings all day. Now her last meeting has started and then it ends she will returns home to Denmark. It can be called to use a stopover in a good way! I hope she will enjoy her evening on the couch with a good cup of coffee... if she doesn't falls asleep herself when she puts the children to sleep of course. I would do that after such a trip and flights.

Pictures from the day's meetings:

Nice to see Mary and Christian Friis Bach together again. They worked alot together when he was the minister for trade and development and it was always my impression that they were a really good team.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...d04164a36637e2 (You can't see she has spent the night in an airplane
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...3f0f9c66ec85bb
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1wKP1gCYAIUTti.jpg:large
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...9c66414c3f4b9a
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...3d2880afcad68d
https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/...92&oe=54E515A0
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1wKZlhIAAE2zE8.jpg:large

[iceflower]

.

Here's a nice additional gallery from today:


** gettyimages/zimbio: Regional Review Of The Status Of Women In The UNECE Region : Press Conference **

[Roskilde]

Thanks Iceflower,

Here are more pictures from today's meetings:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/980467...ream/lightbox/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/980467...ream/lightbox/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/980467...ream/lightbox/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/980467...ream/lightbox/

Acting Director-General meets with Crown Princess Mary of Denmark

https://www.flickr.com/photos/unisge...ream/lightbox/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/unisge...ream/lightbox/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/unisge...ream/lightbox/

[Muhler]

And yet another article by Daily Mail: Princess Mary of Denmark attends meeting at the UN in Geneva on the status of women | Daily Mail Online

[Roskilde]

And also article and pics from Hello Magazine: Princess Mary of Denmark attends UN conference in Geneva - hellomagazine.com

[Muhler]

Kronprinsesse Mary om omskæring: Forældre gør det af kærlighed til deres børn - Royale | www.bt.dk

A BT article about a meeting at Christiansborg today, where the topic was circumcision of girls. A practice that is unfortunately very widespread around the world.

Mary said in her speech: "Parents do it because thay want what is best for their children. They do it out of love for their children.
If the alternative to circumcision is that your daughter will become a social outcast without possibillity of having her own family, then circumcision is perhaps the only bad option.
A life with circumcision is a life with pain. The girls might die from bloodloss from circumcision and they might have problems having children later on in life".

Worldwide 140 million women an girls have been circumcised.
The procedure if you can call it that, since many girls are cut in by completely unqualified persons and under next to no hygenic conditions, usually takes place when the girl is between four and twelve.

---

A horrific number and a barbaric tradition that must be eradicated and as soon as possible IMO. I don't care about culture and tradition. Once it was good culture to see people being killed in the arena or people being burned at the stake. We've moved on since that, so why not here?
The issue here IMO is control. Robbing girls and women of the pleasure of sex and reducing them to numb breeding machines.

ADDED: From BB: http://www.billedbladet.dk/kongelige...ertefuldt-emne

[Roskilde]

More pictures


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2KyMFZCEAAXVNd.jpg:large
H.R.H. Crown Princess Mary opens the conference as patron for UNFPA - strong words!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2Kyg5AIUAEKBJu.jpg:large

Originally Posted by Muhler

A horrific number and a barbaric tradition that must be eradicated and as soon as possible IMO. I don't care about culture and tradition. Once it was good culture to see people being killed in the arena or people being burned at the stake. We've moved on since that, so why not here?
The issue here IMO is control. Robbing girls and women of the pleasure of sex and reducing them to numb breeding machines.

Yes, but no one can survive outside the community. Therefore, one should first educate people, informing them, etc. before making a ban IMO. Anything else would be doomed to failure in advance. If the tradition must be fought (and it must) it won't IMO help to go out and condemn a society where the tradition exists. The way to combat this is instead information, information, information and educating people.

[Muhler]

Originally Posted by Roskilde

Yes, but no one can survive outside the community. Therefore, one should first educate people, informing them, etc. before making a ban IMO. Anything else would be doomed to failure in advance. If the tradition must be fought (and it must) it won't IMO help to go out and condemn a society where the tradition exists. The way to combat this is instead information, information, information and educating people.

And while we try and educate people, who in many cases do not want to be educated and in some cases is actively hindered in recieving infomation anyway, some 8.000 girls a day are in risk of being circumcised - and mostly under very unsanitary conditions.
Sometimes it's necessary to enforce a ban to put an end to a barbaric costum - and after a generation or so it will fizzle out.

Other barbaric costums throughout history were not stopped because people were educated, but because it was enforced from the top down. Then people realised it wasn't perhaps such a bad idea. The traditional (enforced) suicide by Hindu widows in India on their husbands funeral pyre springs to mind.
It's breaking the pattern that matters. It doesn't matter how you do, but break the pattern.

If an adult woman wants to be mutilated, so be it, but children can't say no.

[Eden]

Education is the way to go, banning is also needed, but without education ban or no ban this will continue. Educating children at schools, educating parents before they have children and then educating the older generation. If this tradition has been going on for generations, then you need to educate the generations. Blanket "No You Can't" is only going to push this underground or worse still, those who didn't agree with it in the first place, will now do it because the West says No!
You seem to forget, that the best way to unite a people is to give them a common foe. In this case you will condemn millions more girls to this disgusting practice by the West trying to push forward this ban. Education, education, education and encouraging the people in charge to ban this practice. Only by knowing how bad this is, can those in the situation, make the right choice. IMO :)


Sent from my iPad using The Royals Community

[redtulip]

I don't think at all it's happening because mothers don't know how horrible it must be for the girl' they've gone through it themselves. It's not a lack of "educating", but a social must in the communities they live in.

I agree with Muhler; it must be banned.

[Tarlita]

Circumcision of girls is just another way for Men to demean women to third class citizens. My question is- Why are some cultures so scared of women they have to demean them every way possible?

[iceflower]

.

Here's an addtional gallery of yesterday's meeting:



** ppe gallery **

[Muhler]

Originally Posted by Tarlita

Circumcision of girls is just another way for Men to demean women to third class citizens. My question is- Why are some cultures so scared of women they have to demean them every way possible?

You nailed it.
And I don't get it either - or perhaps I do.

Female circumcision is most prevaliant in backward areas and among those least educated. And my non-PC bid is: If you are a poor struggling nobody, then it appeals to you that someone else per default is below you. i.e. women. - I mean, if you are not more than a woman, then what are you?
So many men (nobodies) will fight any education and any change tooth and nail and if you can't get through the men, you can't get to the women.
The sad thing is that many women will fight just as hard against any change. The Germans have a saying that goes something like this: If you treat people as serfs long enough, they will eventually become serfs.
It's basically wife-beating on a community scale and as you know, women who have been abused long enough accept it, even embrace it.

That's why I believe an enforced ban works. It gives those who want to break the pattern of their local societies an excuse to not have their daughters circumcised. There are after all men with common sense...
I can't see any reason why aide (or even better the sale of tanks) can't come with conditions. - But oh no, we can't do that, it's their culture...
Slavery wasn't (practically) abolished in the 1800's because those who owned slaves were educated or thought it was a great idea, but rather because someone with a bigger club stopped it.

[Roskilde]

Here's more pictures from yesterday's conference:

http://royalista.com/wp-content/imag...200_h=1200.jpg
http://royalista.com/wp-content/imag...200_h=1200.jpg
http://royalista.com/wp-content/imag...200_h=1200.jpg
http://royalista.com/wp-content/imag...200_h=1200.jpg
http://royalista.com/wp-content/imag...200_h=1200.jpg

Here's the full gallery + an article from Royalista:
Crown Princess Mary touched on a painful subject | Royalista

[polyesco]

very important topic

picture from the Dinner
http://kongehuset.dk/Menu/foto--vide...fholder-middag

[Roskilde]

Thanks Polyesco

I can see Caroline Heering, of course, she is part of the The Mary Foundation. But I can also see Birgitte Handwerk. I know she works for the foundation Orchid Project which working with the socially disadvantaged and among other things for women's rights.

Here on a trip in Africa last year:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...d75224a27147fb
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...959bfb18433003 (with the word: Stop female genital mutilation)

She also attended the conference together with Mary:
https://www.facebook.com/birgitte.za...ndwerk?fref=ts

Here's Mary's speech from the conference
The International Conference on FGM/C, Christiansborg, 11 November 2014 - Kongehuset

And gallery from kongehuset.dk
http://kongehuset.dk/Menu/foto--vide...-pigeomskaring

[Nordic]

Originally Posted by Roskilde

I can see Caroline Heering, of course, she is part of the The Mary Foundation. But I can also see Birgitte Handwerk. I know she works for the foundatio Orchid Project which working with the socially disadvantaged and among other things for women's rights.

The Orchid Project works to end female genital cutting.

[Muhler]

Summary of article in Billed Bladet #47, 2014.
Written by Marianne Singer.

As you know by now Mary gave a speech recently at the international conference about female circumcision which took place at Christiansborg.
Today female circumcision takes place in 29 countries predominantly in Africa, even though it occours in a few Middle Eastern countries as well.
In about half the countries the procedure if you can call it that takes place before the girl is five years old. In the other countries it takes place between the age of five and fourteen.
It is estimated that around 125 million women worldwide have been circumcised.

One of the women Mary met at the conference was Kadida Sounfountera from Mali. She is seen in the footage dressed in an African style attire shaking hands with Mary. She now campaigns as a volunteers for Tostan and Orchid Projects both aiming at putting an end to female circumcision. She did that because she was horrified when she wittnessed her two oldest daughters being circumcised and that led her to prevent her two youngest daughters from going through the same thing.

The conference was very much attended by an number of Mary's closest friends. Like Birgitte Handwerk who is fundraiser and second chairman in Orchid Project. Her husband, Jeppe Handwerk was also present.
Caroline Heering was there too, along with the manager of the Mary Foundation, Helle Østergaard.
Elizabeth Buchwald, another very close friend was there as well.
The Minister for Developement and Trade, Mogens Jensen, whom Mary has worked a lot with lately accompanied Mary at the conference.

Mary stressed in her speech what a total violation of women, or rather the girls, a female circumcision is and what physical and psycological enduring effects it often has.
But she also pointed out that the parents didn't do it to hurt their daughters, on the contrary. The cultural and social reasons are a complicated factor in this.

- As you probably know there is also an increased call to ban male circumcision, at least while the person in question is under the legal age.
Speaking as a male and thus from personal experience, a foreskin serves a very distinct purpose and apart from medical reasons I cannot see any reason to cut it away. So I support such a ban as well. What people do when they become adults it up to themselves.
I really can't understand the eagerness some feel about removing perfectly workable bodyparts that nature and evolution put there for a reason.

[Tarlita]

Thanks Muhler for taking the time to transcribe this for us. I also do not agree with male circumsion. I believe it should not be a health problem if males when very young are taught how to clean themselves properly. As with most things in life it all boils down to being taught when young by a parent mostly by a mother.