Kristof begins by discussing how the problem of the 20th century was slavery and gender inequity is the major problem of the 21st. He and WuDunn then launched into a long-ranging discussion about their observations from global conflict zones. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also did segments for the show.

While the effort was wonderful for consciousness raising, some issues felt as though they were glossed over. For one thing, images of suffering women were shown often - but where were those who inflicted the suffering? A warlord was featured at the beginning of the show, but perpetrators were conspicuously absent from this narrative. Where were the pimps? Former sex slave Long Pross was stabbed in the eye by a female pimp - but this was barely touched upon. In the clip above, Kristof also brings up how the owner for one of the brothels is also an employee of the local police force.

Watching the segment reminded me of the frustration many activists felt when reading The Woman's Crusade article in the Saving The World's Women issue in the NY Times magazine. As Melissa over at Shakesville wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, I just read seven pages that are the philosophical equivalent of "She got raped." Passive. Rape is something that happens to women. Something that gets done to them.

So, apparently, is worldwide institutional oppression.

I don't guess I need to say that I am all for giving women around the world every tool, every resource, every dollar and dinar, every bit of choice and opportunity and access, everything possible to lift themselves up and achieve everything they could want or imagine.

But how can we talk about lifting women up without a serious discussion of, no less without more than the merest passing reference to, who and what has been keeping them down?

The segment focused on women's oppression, but glossed over other complicating factors. For example, Kristof actually purchased two girls from sexual slavery and returned them to their villages. One girl remained in her village and wed - the other went back to the brothels, presumably in search of drugs. Kristof mentioned that this made him understand that "freeing" someone is "more than just opening a door" - but that type of analysis was lacking in the articles and segments that Kristof appeared on. Instead, the focus was on feel-good narratives and painful images of poverty and suffering.

On Oprah's website, she has a registry sub-site set up to help.

The various ways to assist (financial and awareness-based) are helpful, but is human intervention enough in the face of structural and societal problems of this magnitude?

George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore And Hillary Clinton [Oprah]

Related: Half The Sky Movement [Official Site]

The Women's Crusade [NY Times]
Here's Your Big Chance To Ask: What About The Men? [Shakesville]

[New York, November 10. Image via Getty]

An exhibit inside the art installation 'Journey' which depicts the world of human trafficking November 10, 2009 near Washington Square Park in New York. The installation shows seven stages of a woman who was trafficked into sexual slavery through exhibits created inside seven shipping containers. A mirror in this photograph would reflect the viewers face as they look through the oval hole. AFP PHOTO/Stan Honda (Photo credit should read STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

While it feels uncharitable to criticize them for bringing attention to abused women, magazines like Marie Claire (and Glamour, which used to publish Mariane Pearl's sex slavery pieces) do seem to look to sex trafficking as the way to inject some Seriousness in between all the makeup tips and dress-for-your-shape ideas. Like stories about breast cancer or other diseases, they seem designed to give the magazine a certain kind of cred — but unlike disease stories, they're often played for shock rather than pathos. In Marie Claire, Abigail Pesta's "Diary of an Escaped Sex Slave" doesn't stint on descriptions of torture — pimps gouge young sex slaves' eyes out, cover them with insects, and shove hot chilies into their vaginas. There's an argument to be made for showing us all that — disgust can turn to outrage can turn to action — but what about a totally extraneous scene in which Pesta's car runs over a puppy on a Cambodian road? Sometimes the piece seems less about stirring up rage against sex slavery, and more about offering a prefab image of Death and Destruction in a Foreign Land.

Said prefab image, of course, must come with a dash of Hope, which in this case wears nice outfits. Of Sreypov Chan, an escaped sex slave turned aid worker who does seem totally heroic, Pesta writes, "In her shiny pink raw-silk dress, she looked as if she'd discovered she had the right to exist." Later, she says,

Sreypov, in a crisp white cotton button-down blouse, black pants, and white heels with sparkling silver trim, kneels on the floor as the women circle round. Sitting there, with her perfect posture, she looks like hope personified.

In fine ladymag fashion, the symbols of liberation and a renewed sense of self-worth are ... clothes. Pesta's essay comes off as just the flipside of Marie Claire's fashion and lifestyle coverage — being a sex slave is apparently the opposite of dressing pretty. And while the story of Sreypov is moving, and the online version includes a link to an anti-sex-trafficking charity, the piece still feels like it was intended to make editors feel good for having run it, and readers feel good for having read it. Does sex trafficking need to be stopped? Absolutely it does. Will alerting individual magazine readers to the problem make that more likely? Maybe. But Pesta's article (which, we should mention, was no doubt heavily edited by Marie Claire brass) reads less like a call to action than like a quick stop in Realityland on the way from Dresses to Shoes. And women like Sreypov deserve more than a quick stop.

Diary Of An Escaped Sex Slave [Marie Claire]

I know, I know. This is the 10 o'clock shout box where we normally holler and release our frustration about the relative dumbassery of the day. (Or at least, that's what we've been doing lately.) But this situation is murky and we need to establish some clarity first.

So before we resume our regularly scheduled caterwauling, let's take a few moments to explore the major questions that I've heard surrounding the ACORN controversy.

What does ACORN do?

According to their website, ACORN - which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - is "the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. "

While I generally use Wikipedia cautiously, in this case, they summarized ACORN a bit better than ACORN's actual site:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a community-based organization in the USA that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States,[1] as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.[2] Maude Hurd has been National President of ACORN since 1990.

ACORN's priorities have included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, better public schools, and other social justice issues.[3] ACORN pursues these goals through demonstration, negotiation, lobbying for legislation, and voter participation.[3] ACORN is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that typically champions liberal and labor-oriented causes. It is made up of numerous legally distinct parts including local non-profits, a national lobbying organization, and the ACORN Housing Corporation.

ACORN has been the subject of public controversy over embezzlement, management fights, voter registration fraud and other misconduct committed by its workers.

Why did they come up in the 2008 election?

During the course of the elections, a link repeatedly emerged between Barack Obama and ACORN, specifically in reference to voter fraud. According to FighttheSmears.com (Obama's campaign site) he was never a community organizer for ACORN, nor did they help with Project Vote efforts. However, FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan site, notes that while the McCain campaign oversold the charges as "voter fraud," Obama was downplaying his involvement with ACORN:

Here's what is true: In recent years, ACORN employees have been investigated multiple times for voter registration fraud. ACORN workers have been convicted of submitting false voter registration forms in Colorado Springs in 2005, Kansas City, Mo., in 2006 and King County, Wash., in 2007. ACORN's Las Vegas office was raided by a state criminal investigator on Oct. 7, 2008. ACORN workers are also the subjects of ongoing investigations in Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. The Indiana investigation started in early October and may involve thousands of fraudulent registration forms. [...]

In 1995, Obama helped represent ACORN in a successful lawsuit to require the state of Illinois to offer "motor voter" registration at DMV offices. Obama has said that this is his only association with ACORN, but that's not the case – he has had other, though less direct, interactions with the organization.

When Obama was on the board of directors of the Woods Fund, the foundation gave grants of $75,000 in 2001 and $70,000 in 2002 to ACORN's Chicago office. The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee cite an additional grant of $45,000 in 2000. The Woods Fund has not responded to our calls about their 2000 grants.

The Obama campaign also paid Citizens Services Inc., a group affiliated with ACORN, more than $800,000 for get-out-the-vote (not voter registration) efforts during the primary election. The nature of CSI's services was initially misrepresented on the Obama campaign's disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, which the campaign describes as an oversight. The Obama campaign says it has not been involved with ACORN during the general election.

In addition, after law school, Obama may have had contact with ACORN when he directed a Chicago registration drive for Project Vote in 1992. According to Sanford Newman, who was the program's national director at the time, ACORN may have been one of dozens of organizations that participated in registration drives that year with Project Vote personnel like Obama. But Project Vote didn't begin contracting exclusively with ACORN until after Obama worked for the group in 1992. "Working for Project Vote at the time was by no means working for ACORN," Newman told us. ACORN had no influence on Project Vote policy and no representation on its board.

In sum, the GOP tried to say that ACORN was guilty of voter fraud and that Obama was a key person in their organization. Obama tried to play down his ties to the organization. ACORN has used problematic tactics, particularly in reference to voter registration that were deemed fraudulent (but that is a different beast than voter fraud) and Obama was not a key leader in the organization (he didn't even work there), but had more ties with ACORN than he was wiling to admit.

What's happening with the current controversy?

ACORN is back in the news after having a series of damning videos posted on BigGovernment.com. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles went into various ACORN offices posing as a pimp and a prostitute and drilled ACORN with various questions. Most areas were asked about getting a home, about how to verify her Giles' income as a prostitute, and how best to set up a brothel in a home. Some ACORN offices complied. The New York Times notes:

Mr. O'Keefe, 25, a filmmaker and conservative activist, was dressed so outlandishly that he might have been playing in a risqué high school play. But in the footage made public - initially by a new Web site, BigGovernment.com - Acorn employees raised no objections to the criminal plans. Instead, they eagerly counseled the couple on how to hide their activities from the authorities, avoid taxes and make the brothel scheme work.

On one of the videos, an unidentified Acorn employee in Washington, told that the pair were engaging in prostitution, explained how to disguise their activities in dealing with bankers and the government. "You don't put down ‘I'm a prostitute' or ‘I'm a lady of the night, and this is where I'm getting my income,' " the Acorn worker said.

At the Baltimore office, a helpful worker suggested describing the prostitute on a loan application as a "freelance performing artist" and said she and the pimp might want to claim some of the young Salvadoran prostitutes as dependents and collect the child tax credit for them.

ACORN protests this characterization, even putting up a video from one of their staffers (Katherine Conway Russell) who encountered O'Keefe and Giles and called the police after their ruse became suspicious:

Where have we seen James O'Keefe before?

Interestingly enough, James O'Keefe was also behind the 2008 scandal with Planned Parenthood where he posed as a caller trying to donate money to specifically fund abortions for African Americans:

O'Keefe told Cybercast News Service it was his voice on the recording and that the recording has not been doctored. "Nothing was done to change the content," he said. "I think the audio clearly speaks for itself."

O' Keefe explained that part of his motivation for placing the call was to fight the racism he perceives in Planned Parenthood.

"African-Americans today are targeted by the abortion industry and suffer deeply because of it," he said. "Planned Parenthood makes a profit off of their operations. We wanted to reveal their racist past - and the practical racism of their policies today - reflected in their other operations. Planned Parenthood must be held accountable for their actions, both past and present."

What are the mitigating/aggravating factors here?

On the mitigating side, the ACORN employee caught on film says she was "playing" - she felt the stunt was ridiculous, and responded with silly, over the top answers. She notes that at the beginning of the interaction, she asked if the duo were reporters, and they answered no.

In addition, looking at O'Keefe's past history, it's fairly clear he has an agenda in mind, and he will keep calling around/approaching branches of organizations until he gets the type of answer he is looking for.

But, on the aggravating side you have the horrifying reality that someone who is supposedly an advocate for the community would advise anyone on how to conceal (and profit from) sex trafficking. Juan Carlos Vera, one of the ACORN employees who dispensed such advice, was fired. But this is a serious issue. Atlasien quickly penned a piece for Racialicious, saying:

A lot of people on the left don't want to talk about this issue. I get a feeling of closing ranks. After all, ACORN has done many, many good things for low-income communities. They work with people on the margins of society that no one else will work with. It's a difficult balance. Low-income people who work in illegal activities should NOT be cut off and isolated… but activities that savagely victimize other people shouldn't be supported, either. I would never say that drug-dealing and sex work are "victimless" crimes; that would be a stupid statement because there are very few activities that are truly victimless, either legal or illegal. Selling cigarettes is legal, for example, but not victimless.

But I refuse to believe that there is any kind of gray area when it comes to child prostitution. [...]

This is a horrendous problem, and the statistics here show that children of color are the most affected and most victimized. There are many contributing factors and many, many people to blame. The pimps, to start off with. Everyone who enables the pimps, including their friends and relatives and money launderers. The criminal justice system that treats the victims as criminals. Self-righteous prostitute-haters that believe impoverished, abused children should be punished for their "choices" instead of helped… and vote to keep the current system going. Regular bystanders, like me, that don't contribute to the victimization but don't know how to stand against it effectively.

The right-wing anger around the ACORN sting comes from a place of racism more than a place of sympathy. A huge theme in their commentary is that "their tax money" would be hypothetically going to "illegal immigrant prostitutes". But I'm not a right-winger, and I'm angry too, not about my tax money, but about a cultural habit spread through all levels of American society that includes enabling victimizers and rapists.

Please feel free to discuss amongst yourselves - leave any further questions/clarifications in the comments.

House votes to defund ACORN [AP]
ACORN announces new training, review after 'prostitution' videos [CNN]
Official Site [ACORN]
ACORN [Wikipedia]
Barack Obama Never Organized with ACORN [FighttheSmears.com]
ACORN Accusations [FactCheck.org]
Official Site [BigGovernment.com]
Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn [NY Times]
ACORN Housing responds to recent allegations [ACORN]
Planned Parenthood Agreed to Accept Race-Motivated Donations [CNS News]
ACORN Employee Says She Thought Couple Was Part of a Stunt [Washington Post]
San Diego ACORN employee fired over video [MSNBC]
ACORN Pimp Sting, Child Prostitution and Accountability [Racialicious]

• Researchers have found that the drugs used to treat bleeding after a woman has given birth, as well as the drugs administered to deal with labor pains, may impede milk production and hamper a new mother's ability to breastfeed her newborn. • Children as young as two or three have been shown to harbor certain negative stereotypes about the elderly. "We're seeing what we could call ageism by about age three," said University of Alberta researcher Sheree Kwong See. An obvious antidote? Taking toddlers to visit their grandparents. • Taco Bell has agreed to pay two 16-year-old former employees a total of $350,000 to make up for the fact that they were both raped by supervisor Terence E. Davis. Davis plead guilty to the charges, and will serve two concurrent eight year sentences. • GHB may be most commonly known as a "date rape" drug, but apparently, many people are sipping the stuff to get high. One capful gives a feeling similar to drinking five beers in five minutes, topped off with some PCP, but don't get too excited; it is incredibly dangerous and highly addictive. • Statistics New Queensland Health show that one in four abortions performed at 20 weeks or later went wrong in 2007. The figure is up 20% from 2003. • Three American men have been charged with molesting young children in Cambodia. Ronald Gerard Boyajian, Erik Leonardus Peeters, and Jack Louis Sporich were prosecuted under a new initiative, that aims to crack down on U.S. citizens who travel abroad, often to Cambodia, to prey on kids. All three men had previously been convicted of sex offenses in the U.S. • A Maine man has been arrested - for the second time - for climbing down into the waste pit in an outhouse. Gary Moody claims he went into the pit to rescue his shirt, which he says he put on the outhouse seat "because outhouse seats are dirty." No shit, but whats underneath them is way, way worse. • Samar Saed Abdullah has been condemned to die for being accessory to the murder of three men. She claims that her husband committed the murders, yet he remains on the loose while she faces hanging. Her parents swear she is innocent, and claim the Iraqi police tortured her into confessing. • Ever wondered what it is like to be a baby? Philosopher Alison Gopnik says: "When we travel for instance, we are suddenly surrounded by an unexpected new world and, instead of just focusing on the important things, we take in lots of information at once. That actually makes us more vividly conscious of our surroundings, not less. I think that for babies, every day is like first love in Paris." • Meet Calvino Inman, a young boy who cries tears of blood. Even though vampires are so in right now, this poor kid's condition sound terrible, not to mention painful. •  To celebrate the legalization of gay marriage in Vermont, Ben & Jerry's has announced they are temporarily changing the name of the delicious classic "Chubby Hubby" to "Hubby Hubby." •

• Although death rates for male smokers are declining as more men quit, the death rate for women from smoking-related illnesses is steadily rising in Western Europe. Also scary: those killed before age 70 from smoking lose, on average, 23 years of life. • Since the economic downturn, Ireland has become "firmly enmeshed in the global sex trade," according to Ruhama, an organization that gives support to sex workers. Many of the women being trafficked into Ireland are underage (some as young as 15), and come from Eastern European countries and Nigeria. •  A new law passed in the UK will allow lesbians to register the names of both partners on their children's birth certificates. Previously, only one woman was allowed to register as the mother. Obviously, some homophobic critics say "the change would be detrimental to family values." • A 37-year-old woman from Germany suffers some very interesting seizures, which temporarily turn her into a man (at least, in her own mind). She reports feeling that her voice has become deeper and her arms hairier. She has also suffered damage to the right amygdala, but doctors are uncertain whether that is the direct cause. • The World Endometriosis Research Foundation has announced a new study, which will focus on the estimated 100 million women who suffer from the disease, and seeks to address the dangerous lack of data about the illness. • A 10-year-old girl from Florida saved the lives of many of her neighbors when she ran door-to-door, knocking and yelling, to alert them of the growing fire. "This little girl, a really great person, saved us," said Jessica Phelps, a resident of the Orange County apartment building. • An online survey found that only 13% of Wikipedia contributors are female, and only 31% of its readers are women. • Following her conversion to Christianity, and the subsequent death threats from her father, a 17-year-old Muslim girl ran away from home to live with a pastor. Many Florida Muslims take issue with the press coverage of the story, which they claim has portrayed the entire Muslim community in a negative light. •

Like Percea before her, Duenos traveled to Western Europe from a country with fewer economic opportunities and in which she is an ethnic minority (Percea is reportedly Roma) to take a low-skill job, only to publicly and famously decide to auction off her virginity in order to give the money to her parents and return to her country. Percea claimed, like many a sex worker before her, that the money was to fund her college education — though it turns out she'd never completed high school — and changed her story that he younger siblings needed it; the 28-year-old Duenos claims her mother has Alzheimer's and she needs the money for her mother's and for her own education. (Suspicious me checked and Grey's Anatomy, where young Meredith's mother's early-onset Alzheimer's is a prominent storyline, just finished its second season in Spain.) Both women proffered medical certificates to "prove" their virginities, though most reputable doctors (and my own personal experience) agree that no examination can definitively prove or disprove the loss of one's virginity.

Basically, what's going on is that these women — like others before them — are traveling to Western Europe (either of their own volition or not entirely) to engage in sex work that is illegal in their own countries. They, or the families sending them there to procure money through sex work, are taking advantage of a legal and social climate where sex work is legal and more acceptable and of the publicity surrounding the stupid virginity-auction trend. They're telling stories that sex workers all around the world use to minimize the stigma or guilt that they and/or their johns feel by claiming their sex work is a selfless or self-improving act encouraged by their families. And it's no mistake that they're women of color in majority white countries — international sex trafficking is often based around stereotypes of race and the sexuality conferred on people because of their race — or that they plan to return home after they engage in sex work and give the money to others once they get there. In the wake of the economic downturn, apparently, the sex tourism industry, which is often decried by women's rights activists as exploitative, is coming to the former tourists, clad in Western clothes and "sanctioned" by these women's families as a way to head off accusations of trafficking. But just because it's someone's mother pimping her out, doesn't make it not trafficking. And it's getting more than a little worrisome.

Woman To Sell Virginity On Net [The Sun]

Earlier: Another Day, Another Dollar, Another Virgin Auctioning Off Her Maidenhead
Like A Virgin
Hymens: The New Old Chastity Belts?

•  Dr. Fabiola Carrieri says she was not offended by the comment made by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi ("I wouldn't mind being resuscitated by you") while she was working in an Abruzzo field hospital. She said it was merely a "gallant" compliment intended to lighten the drama of the situation. •  Police in Saudi Arabia are investigating an elaborate hoax that involved sewing machines, cell phones, and a non-existant substance called "red mercury." •  A Swedish man has announced that he plans to display what he calls "Scandinavia's largest collection of erotic items" in his Stockholm garden. He owns over 15,000 "erotic items" to combat society's "anti-sex" leanings. • If you're looking to build your own erotic collection, be one of the first 100 people to stop by Babeland on tax day and receive a free Gold Digger vibrator. • Dr. Aronne, author of new dieting book The Skinny, explains to the Wall Street Journal why a big meal makes you want to eat more. He also sets up a daily diet plan that advises groundbreaking weight loss measures like breakfast and salads. •  The Houston Chronicle explores yet another stupid trope for ladies in Hollywood: the high powered, but still mentally unstable, career woman. • Judith Krug, the founder of Banned Book Week and former director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, has sadly passed away. •  The Iraqi government has been working quietly on a draft law that seeks to protect victims of sex trafficking and punish the abusers with fines and prison sentences. Currently Baghdad offers no protection to victims of trafficking. • Allen Andrade, 32, is scheduled to go on trail today for the murder of Angie Zapata, a transgender woman. Andrade is believed to be the first person tried for a hate crime under the sexual orientation section of Colorado's hate crime law. •  The Parks and Recreation office of Spokane, WA, have employed an exterminator who plans to detonate some 100-150 squirrels that hide in the ground with a special machine called the Rodenator Pro. •  A man from Texas has been ticketed for cursing at his neighbor about his cat, who liked to "defecate" in his yard. "I used the slang word, the four-letter word to describe what the cat was doing," he later explained. • In attempts to escape prosecution in a fatal drunk driving case, the defendant published his own (fake) obituary. He was later found alive, hiding under a pile of rocks in New Mexico. •  A polar bear from Chicago has been brought all the way to Detroit to mate with two females at the Detroit Zoo. • Spokesmodels at the New York Auto Show have been forced to field questions about the bailout from attendees, despite the fact that they are employed by temp agencies and don't actually have anything to do with the auto industry. • 

• The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in Australia is working on creating an official "intersex" gender for people who don't define themselves as "female" or "male." • A new study has found that women who suffer from severe stress six months before they conceive can increase the risk of having a premature baby. • Three egg donor agencies in Illinois are offering the nation's first guarantee for would-be parents that they can receive a discount if their egg donor changes her mind. • A Massachusetts man is appealing a $100 ticket he got while driving in the breakdown lane as he was taking his in-labor wife to the hospital. • Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison and Seamus Heaney supported the new Aura Estrad Prize which is given to young female writers who live in America or Mexico and write in Spanish. • A recent study of United States Latinas shows that those with more European ancestry have an increased risk of breast cancer. • Lillian Allen, a 100-year-old African American woman and community activist, is excited for Obama's inauguration, where her grandson who serves in the Secret Service will protect the new President. • A "morbidly obese" dog named Jiffy survived being frozen to the sidewalk overnight in Wisconsin thanks to his layers of chub. Jiffy's owner was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of animal neglect. • Glasvegas's tiny female drummer Caroline McKay was voted the 10th Coolest Person in Rock by NME magazine. • SANS offers cheap, printable patterns for crafty men and women who want to make or alter their own clothes. • A 19-year-old lass from Florida was arrested on misdemeanor assault and battery charges on Sunday when she popped off on a store employee for calling her the c-word. •

[Image via Mantra Films, Inc.]

• Eight overweight Texan women reported a dismissive attitude from medical workers, small gowns and small blood pressure cuffs as reasons they are ambivalent to going to the doctor's office. • A 73-year-old British man who previously held the world record for most tattoos (he has full-body leopard spots) has moved away from his remote hut on the Scottish coastline because he's getting too old to canoe to the nearest town. • The FBI announced today that a three-day, nationwide operation that began on Thursday freed 47 U.S. teens from forced prostitution and led to the arrests of hundreds of other people. • A Court of Appeals ruling in the UK that allows trial judges to tell jurors that a rape victim delayed reporting a rape because they felt "shame and guilt" may increase the number of rape convictions. • An all-female Dalit community radio station in India has been steadily gaining listeners and praise since the station first opened nearly two weeks ago. • Wanderlust and The Girls' Guide to India are two travel books that are geared towards the female tourist traveling in India. • A female robber has hit three Columbus-area banks in Ohio in the past week, a rare feat particularly for a female thief. •

Related: The Countertraffickers [New Yorker]

• Apparently, the fatter women get, the harder it is for them to conceive. Funny, it used to be the more underweight a woman was, the harder it was to get pregnant. But Nicole Richie, who just weighed in at a buck o' five, sure turned that nonsense on its head! [The Guardian]
  
• Speaking of pregnancy and overweight women, more mothers in the United States are dying from childbirth than they have for decades, and, well, obesity may be partly to blame. [MSNBC]
  
• A recent study says that spending more time in the sun could help prevent breast and colon cancer. Hey, how about we all stop listening to scientists? Starting now? [Daily Mail]

• Mitt Romney is following the anti-choice movement's lead when it comes to restricting access to contraception. Eighty-six anti-choice groups have come out against all forms of contraception, but the media's lack of coverage about this agenda means that a candidate like Romney's support of such measures goes relatively unnoticed. To be safe, buy out your local drugstore's condom supply — except the Duane Reade on Houston and Broadway in NYC. We've got dibs. [Daily Kos]
• Great, just great. The World Health Organization says another deadly disease, on par with AIDS, is inevitable. Hopefully this one won't have anything to do with fucking, because lord knows you won't be able to protect yourself with anything but pulling and praying. [News-Medical.Net]
• A new law was signed by New York Governor Spitzer yesterday that would force indicted rape suspects to get an HIV test, if their victim requested it. Previously, victims could only request an HIV test after conviction. [NY Times]
• There are 5,000 prostitutes under the age of 18 in the UK — a shocking statistic, but not as shocking as the report that there are 1.2 million children and babies trafficked each year, worldwide. Can we please move to Mars? [BBC News]
• The Catholic Church has denounced Amnesty International's new stance on limited abortion rights. Big freakin' shocker. [Ms.]
• The Playboy Bunnies are crossing the pond, as the company plans to open a store/restaurant/casino in London. Yay, new friends from Pete Doherty to party with! [Reuters]