UN Commission for Social Development

Dear Delegates,

Welcome to the United Nations Commission for Social Development of the Harvard National Model United Nations 2010! My name is Natalia Renta and I am a junior living in Currier House at Harvard College. My major is Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and I am also planning on obtaining a secondary field in Government. As a resident of San Juan, Puerto Rico for all my life, I have yet to become accustomed to the inhumanely cold weather we experience here in Boston. To try to distract myself from this, I have been involved in several extracurricular activities. My freshman and sophomore years, I was very involved in the Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA), a student-run nonprofit organization located right here at Harvard. My involvement at PBHA included volunteering and directing the program Kids with Special Needs Achievement Program (which goes into two special education classrooms in South Boston and Chinatown to mentor kids), serving as PBHA’s Alumni Relations Coordinator, interning at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, and being a senior counselor for a summer camp located in the South End. This summer, I am spending most of my time working at the Cambridge Women’s Commission, BAGLY (Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth), and helping out with the PBHA camps. This year, my focus will be (besides HNMUN) on the Athena Conference, a semi-annual, day-long conference dedicated to increasing awareness, empowerment, and activism of high school girls from Boston and Cambridge.

I am dedicating a lot of time this summer to preparing the best study guide I can for this conference. I hope you will find it useful as you begin to research these topics and eventually as you work with other delegates to design innovative resolutions. Good luck and feel free to contact me with any questions. I am excited to meet you all soon!

Best,

Natalia Renta
Director, UN Commission for Social Development
Harvard National Model United Nations 2010

Topic Area A: Anti-Sodomy Laws and Social Integration

Dozens of countries criminalize consensual same-sex, maintaining in the books laws that punish severely those who engage in sodomy. On the other hand, several countries have legalized marriage between individuals of the same sex. While it has long been the policy of the international community to recognize and respect state sovereignty, international human rights documents such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights seem to suggest that anti-sodomy laws are an unacceptable form of invasion of privacy:

Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

This same document, however, affirms in Article 29 that “in the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.”

The Commission for Social Development has as its imperative the task of determining whether or not it has a duty to protect sexual minorities from government-sanctioned punishment or if this is an issue that, because of its religious and moral implications for many, should remain under state sovereignty. Among the many aspects the Commission must consider in its resolution are the religious and cultural backgrounds of member states as well as the rights of individuals. This topic has seldom been debated in an international forum; hence, delegates are encouraged to present innovative, yet pragmatic and comprehensive solutions.

Topic Area B: Domestic Workers

Domestic workers, employees who work in their employer’s household, are susceptible to a wide range of abuses, as their working conditions are mostly out of sight. These abuses include physical, psychological, and sexual. Domestic workers are also more susceptible to these abuses than most other workers because most labor laws do not apply to them. This is so because domestic work is often perceived to be the work women have traditionally done free of charge, as a responsibility of their gender. Therefore, governments are hesitant to consider it “real work” and give domestic workers protections other workers enjoy, such as minimum wage and days of rest. The probability of these abuses increases when these positions are held by illegal immigrants, as the threat of deportation is ever-present. Their legal status often forces immigrant women to attain and maintain jobs in the household in poor working conditions. Furthermore, many employment companies that recruit domestic workers often seduce them (women and girls) with promises of a better future. However, the reality is that many find themselves trapped in harsh working conditions.

This topic is multifaceted, as it deals with immigration issues, human trafficking, child labor, labor laws, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, and gender roles. Solutions to this problem must take into consideration all of these axes.