Margaret Koniuck, President Elect of UNICEF Canada, has notified the
Breastfeeding Committee for Canada with a copy of an article from today's
Winnipeg Free Press about a
University of Winnipeg political science professor attending this UN
conference in New York who was not allowed to breastfeed her five month old
son while attending meetings. The UN apparently has a policy that children
under 14 years of age are not allowed to attend meetings and the professor,
Deborah Stienstra, has been forced to leave her son with a caregiver in her
hotel room. The article indicates that UN officials said they would make an
exception for Ms. Stienstra by allowing her to breastfeed in another area of
the UN buildings. However, Ms. Stienstra felt that this "ad hoc" solution
was not appropriate and stated that the location offered was a long way from
where her meetings were taking place. The article also includes a quote from
Linda Romphf in Winnipeg. You may be able to access the entire article at
www.winnipegfreepress.com under the Local News section.

This is very ironic in the wake of the Humber College conference last week
in Toronto where
Michelle Poirier from Victoria was a keynote speaker regarding the rights of
women to breastfeed in public - a very empowering session to say the least!!

Letters should be sent to
Carol Bellamy
Executive Director
UNICEF
New York, NY 10017 USA
FAX number 1 212 887-7465
and also to the Secretary General of the UN ?

Maureen Fjeld, IBCLC
Past Co-chair, Breastfeeding Committee for Canada

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html