Conservative groups have reacted angrily to a UNESCO-proposed set of guidelines on sex education as being age inappropriate and supportive of access to abortion as a right. The guidelines, aimed at curbing HIV/AIDS transmission, were to be distributed to government, school systems and teachers around the globe but have been withdrawn from UNESCO’s Web site in the wake of the controversy, and the release of the final document has been postponed. “The main effort is to try to empower young people with knowledge that could actually save their lives,” UNESCO’s HIV/AIDS coordinator Mark Richmond said. “We want to give them the opportunity for more informed choices than currently exist.”
Hamas Objects to Possible Lessons on Holocaust in U.N.-Run Schools in Gaza
Hamas leaders are moving quickly to oppose potential changes in the curriculum for UN-administered schools that could include teaching the history of the Holocaust — which Hamas says runs contrary to its culture. The UN Relief and Works Agency typically defers to local officials on the particulars of school curriculum and does not include any lessons about the Holocaust but hopes to introduce a program on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which was adopted after World War II in recognition of Nazi atrocities.
UNICEF chief sees funding falling in 2010-11
The ongoing global recession might lead to a decrease of 10% of UNICEF’s income during the next two years, UNICEF chief Ann Veneman says. UNICEF’s operating funds are comprised of voluntary donations, with about two-thirds coming from government donors.
US fares poorly in child welfare survey
America has some of the industrial world’s worst rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and child poverty, even though it spends more per child than better-performing countries such as Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands, a new survey indicates. The OECD, a Paris-based watchdog of industrialized nations, urged the United States to shift more of its public spending to its youngest children, under the age of six, to improve their health and educational performance.
U.N. delivers food aid to 1 mln in north Uganda
The World Food Programme is delivering urgent aid to more than 1 million people in northern Uganda, where drought is adversely affecting those who have returned to the area after the end of hostilities between government forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Birth drugs ‘cut breastfeeding’
Drugs commonly used to treat bleeding after birth may hamper a woman’s ability to breastfeed her baby, research suggests. The study, which appears in the journal BJOG, suggests the drugs may impede milk production. The Swansea University team also confirmed high doses of painkilling drugs have a similar effect.