Day Seven

Friday....where has the time gone?
This cold has interfered with what I had planned to do here in New York but I am still doing some exciting things.
Today started, as always,with chapel. There was no briefing today because the second floor space has been turned into a market. Woman from many countries have brought hand made items from their homeland to sell. There is everything from area rugs to earrings. This year I managed not to but anything. Pakistan has its usual wonderful dresses, pashminas and clergy stoles. There were hand sewn dolls and books for children table runners, lots of varieties of jewelery etc.

At 9:30 I returned to my room to arrange it for a meeting and we held an advocacy meeting here working on our view of the outcome document and any changes that we would like to see. One person was nodding off during the meeting showing how exhausted people are after the first week. My roommate actually returned during the meeting and went soundly to sleep on her bed for the rest  of the meeting. We did not get to the end of the document but we did make progress.

Lunch and a nap later I held some discussions about the document and at 4:15 I walked up to a pub to meet the SIA President  Cheri Fleming.

At 6:30 the North America /Europe Caucus met and that was kind of exciting.We were reviewing the document and a ":discussion" broke out I think on the inclusion of  "prostitution" vs sex trade. I stood up and said that if we are unable to reach concensus at our level then how do we expect the Commission to reach concensus. There was a lot of emotion in the room as several of the attendees are survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse.Canada was slammed regarding the disappearing aboriginal women especially in BC.
During the caucus I also spoke about the mission visit with Canada and with the US mission.

The meeting went well beyond the allotted time but some agreement was reached and we are circulating our recommendations.
At the meeting we also heard that the Moslem countries and some of the African countries have issued and ultimatum of sorts which would remove previously agreed upon language but we urged our negotiators to continue on with our support to work towards a progressive document.

The meeting ended after 8 so Alice and I returned to our room and ate our left overs.

So endeth the first week.


Blessings Judy