rights

Lucille Mair (Jamaica), first female Under- Secretary-General of the United Nations. (Show here in 1980)

Ban pays tribute to late women’s rights advocate and senior UN official, Lucille Mair

30 January 2009
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today paid tribute to the late Lucille Mathurin Mair, a distinguished Jamaican diplomat and leading women’s rights advocate, who was also the first woman to be appointed as an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Holocaust has vital lessons for today, says Ban

24 January 2009
The Holocaust provides important lessons for the present, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, stressing the necessity to bolster the forces of harmony and dialogue.
Michel Sidibé

UN working to ensure release of gay men jailed in Senegal

15 January 2009
Stressing that homophobia has no place in the response to the AIDS epidemic, the United Nations today deplored the jailing of nine gay men who were members of a group working to provide condoms and HIV treatment in Senegal, and said it is working with a coalition of partners to ensure their release.