Gulf Coast welders dying from anthrax-like disease, researchers say

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay News

Welders on the Gulf Coast have recently been dying due to an anthrax-like infection, with researchers saying they should be on the lookout for a variety of symptoms. 

A common group of bacteria may be causing deadly pneumonia or anthrax-like disease among metalworkers in the southern United States, health officials report.

The bacteria, called Bacillus cereus (B. cereus), naturally occurs in soil and dust.

B. cereus can cause food poisoning and anthrax-like disease, but why it singles out welders and other metalworkers is a mystery, according to researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Also a puzzle is why it has only been reported in Gulf Coast states.

"In the past, long-term exposure to welding and metalworking fumes has been associated with various forms of lung injury that can cause changes in lung function and increase susceptibility to lung infections, including fatal pneumonia," said senior researcher Dr. William Bower, a medical officer in the CDC's Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology.

"However, it's not known why welders and metalworkers have been the only occupations reporting this specific infection," he said. "More research is needed to better understand how and why this particular occupational group is affected by this rare illness."

Bower added that it's probable that more cases of this infection occur than is known.

"It is likely some cases go unreported, but we believe this is still a rare condition," he said. "Infections with B. cereus are not reportable conditions these cases were investigated because astute clinicians were concerned by the severity of the illness. Hopefully, this report will lead to more clinicians being aware of this disease."

According to the report, 2020 saw two cases of anthrax pneumonia in welders caused by a rare B. cereus bacteria that contained anthrax toxin genes usually associated with the bacteria that causes anthrax. One patient died.

In all, since 1994, seven cases of pneumonia infections with B. cereus bacteria with anthrax toxin genes have been seen. Five of these patients died. The other two were severely ill, remained hospitalized for a long time and had a long recovery.

All were welders or metalworkers in Louisiana or Texas.

Bower said that doctors should be on the lookout for this disease when workers, especially welders, develop severe pneumonia.

"Health care providers should consider the possibility of Bacillus cereus infection when trying to determine the cause of severe, rapidly progressive pneumonia in welders and metalworkers, especially if they are working in U.S. Gulf Coast states. These types of bacteria have also rarely been associated with infections resembling anthrax skin lesions," he said. "Prompt and proper diagnosis could help improve patient care and survival."

Also, welders and metalworkers should be educated about the disease and try to minimize inhaling harmful fumes, Bower said.

Dr. Marc Siegel is a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. He said this bacteria is generally associated with gastrointestinal infections causing diarrhea. The severe pneumonia-like illness is much less common, he noted.

"This is very rare, but something to be aware of for this group," Siegel said.

The report was published Friday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on Bacillus cereus.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

NO AFFORDABLE CHILD CARE USA

Over 300,000 women left workforce last month, National Women's Law Center says

A sign seeking applications for new employees is seen in the window of Dos Gringos in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

 File Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Over 300,000 women age 20 and over left the workforce entirely in September, the National Women's Law Center said in a new analysis.

The number represented the largest drop in women in this age group no longer working or looking for work since the same month last year, when 863,000 women left the labor force, the NWLC said.

Women's labor force participation for the same age group fell to 57.1%, from 57.4% in August, remaining below the pre-pandemic rate of 59.2% in February 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic started, women's participation rate in this same age group had not been as low as 57.1% since 1988, more than a generation ago, the NWLC noted.

Overall, the U.S. economy gained 194,000 jobs last month, but women lost 26,000 jobs and are still short nearly 2.9 million jobs since February 2020.

Men gained 220,000 jobs the same month, resulting in the overall job increase.

The economy has lost nearly 5 million jobs since February 2020 and women account for 57.5% of those losses.

"It would take over two years of growth at September's level to gain back the nearly 5 million jobs the economy has lost since February 2020," according to NWLC calculations using BLS data. "If the nearly 2 million women who have left the labor force since February 2020 were counted among the unemployed, women's unemployment would have been 6.8% last month."

Black and Latina women have been disproportionately impacted by higher rates of unemployment since the pandemic in comparison to women overall and White men, the NWLC data showed.

Over the first 10 months of the pandemic in the United States, more than 2.3 million left the labor force, the NWLC previously said, in comparison to just under 1.8 million men.

A few months prior to the pandemic, women made up the majority of the U.S. workforce.

The NWLC told The Hill Monday that the "normal" that existed before the pandemic was "not sustainable for millions of working women, particularly Black, brown, and immigrant women, single mothers, and women with disabilities."

The NWLC added that the "best path" forward is "robust investments in child care and home-based services, universal kindergarten, universal paid leave, extending the Child Tax Credit."

Many of those measures have been included in President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" plan, which lawmakers have worked on as part of social benefits and climate package, but lawmakers have disagreed on the size and scope of the package.

US Survey: One in three young kids uses social media, use of parental controls spotty

Many younger children use social media, but fewer parents engage controls, a new survey has found. Photo by Pixelkult/Pixaba

Oct. 18 (UPI) -- One out of three children ages 7 to 9 use some form of social media, according to the results of a national poll released Monday.

In addition, nearly half of those ages 10 to 12 indicated that they are on social media, the data showed.

Still, one in six parents of elementary and middle schoolers who use social media report that they do not use parental controls, the survey, conducted by the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital found.

Roughly 40% say that it is too time consuming to monitor kids' social use, the researchers behind the survey said.

"There continues to be debate over how soon is too soon when it comes to using social apps and how parents should oversee it," Sarah Clark, co-director of the Mott Poll, said in a press release.

"Our poll looks at how often tweens and younger children use social platforms and how closely parents are monitoring these interactions," she said.

The findings are based on a survey of more than 1,000 parents with at least one child ages 7 to 12, according to Clark and her colleagues.

In deciding which apps are appropriate and safe for their child, nearly three in four parents surveyed reported that they consider if the app has parental controls while more than three in five looked at an app's age rating or whether their children would need it for school, the researchers said

About one-third of those surveyed said their children were taught about safe use of social media apps in school, and these parents are more likely to report that their child uses social media apps, the data showed.

Although two-thirds of respondents said they use at least one parent control feature, one in five indicated they had been unable to find the information they needed to set up parental controls.

Nearly two-thirds of responding parents said they use a parental block on certain sites and about 60% require parent approval for new contacts.

In addition, more than half of respondents indicated that they use privacy settings, daily time limits and passcodes for certain content.

Conversely, a little more than one-third believed parental controls of social media are a "waste of time" because children would be able to find a loophole around them, the data showed.

However, parents should be helping kids navigate the social media world to help them understand the harms of oversharing and interacting with strangers, Clark said.

"If parents are allowing younger children to engage in social media, they should take responsibility for making the child's online environment as safe as possible," she said.

"If parents can't commit to taking an active role in their child's social media use, they should have their child wait to use these apps," she added.

Two-thirds of parents surveyed expressed concerns about their child sharing private information through social media, but less than 60% of them reported using privacy settings that limit the collection of data through children's apps, the data showed.

Half of parents polled also thought their children would be unable to spot an adult user masquerading as a young person on social media, while one-third also are not confident that their children could recognize what information is true versus false on social media apps.

"Parents should be guiding children toward safe use of social media apps through both parental controls and having regular conversations with their kids to teach them online safety rules," Clark said.

"For young kids who are using these apps for the first time, it's especially important for their parents to stay vigilant about content they're engaging with and who they're talking to," she said.

WALL STREET
7-foot tall Harambe statue installed opposite of Charging Bull covered in bananas


by: Kristine Garcia, Nexstar Media WirePosted: Oct 18, 2021 


A Harambe statue is seen in front of the Charging Bull statue on October 18, 2021 in New York City. The Sapien.Network, a social networking platform currently under development, unveiled a seven-foot statue of Harambe, a gorilla from the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden who became a media sensation in May 2016 who was shot by zookeepers to protect a child, in front of the Charging Bull statue that was surrounded by bananas, that would be distributed to local food shelves, to protest wealth disparity in the country. The group states that the statue of Harambe “represents the millions of everyday people who struggle under a system that enriches wealthy elites and leaves the average person behind.” (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)



NEW YORK (WPIX) – A statue of Harambe, a 17-year-old gorilla whose death sparked international outcry, went face to face with the Charging Bull statue in Manhattan Monday.

The seven-foot statue of the silverback gorilla appeared opposite of the famous Charging Bull statue in the Financial District.

In addition to the Harambe statue, 10,000 bananas were placed around the iconic bull to illustrate how “bananas” Wall Street has become, the group behind the effort said. Sapien.Network, a company currently building a new social media network, commissioned the seven-foot statue of the gorilla.

Sapien.Network said the bronze statue of Harambe, contrasted with the bronze Charging Bull, represents millions of people who struggle under a system that enriches only the wealthy. They hoped the display would bring attention to income inequality.

The bananas will be distributed to local food shelves across the New York area, the company founders said

.

Bananas are seen covering the floor space of the Charging Bull statue on October 18, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Harambe was shot and killed after a 3-year-old boy climbed into the gorilla’s exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. The gorilla then grabbed the boy and carried him around the exhibit. Harambe was shot by zookeepers in fear of the boy’s safety.

The incident sparked criticism over how the zoo handled the situation and sparked debate over primates in captivity, with “Justice for Harambe” trending on social media.

Israeli diver finds 900-year-old sword on seabed


Oct. 18 (UPI) -- The Israel Antiquities Authority said a diver off the country's northern coast found a 900-year-old sword believed to have belonged to a knight during the Crusades.

The authority said Shlomi Katzin of Atlit was diving off Carmel Beach when he spotted a barnacle-encrusted sword on the seabed.

A video of Katzin's dive shows his discovery of the sword, along with a barnacle-covered boat anchor.

Katzin took the sword to the northern district office of the antiquities authority's Robbery Prevention Unit, which handed the artifact off to the National Treasures Department.

"The sword, which has been preserved in perfect condition, is a beautiful and rare find and evidently belonged to a Crusader knight," Nir Distelfeld, inspector for the Israel Antiquities Authority's Robbery Prevention Unit, told The Times of Israel.

Officials said the sword will be cleaned and studied by experts before going on display.

  

Israeli scuba diver discovers ancient Crusader sword


Israel Ancient Sword

In this photo provided by Israel's Antiquities Authority, Nir Distelfeld, Inspector for the Israel Antiquities Authority's holds an ancient sword after it was discovered by an Israeli diver off the country's Mediterrean coast near Haifa, Israel, Oct. 14, 2021. An Israeli scuba diver has salvaged an ancient sword off the country's Mediterrean coast that experts say dates back to the Crusaders. Israel's Antiquities Authority said the man was on a weekend dive in northern Israel last Saturday when he spotted the sword. Fearing his discovery might be buried, the diver took the sword, estimated to be 900 years old, ashore and delivered it to government experts, the authority said.

 (Israel's Antiquities Authority via AP)

Tue, October 19, 2021

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli scuba diver has salvaged an ancient sword off the country's Mediterranean coast that experts say dates back to the Crusaders.

Israel's Antiquities Authority said Monday the man was on a weekend dive in northern Israel when he spotted a trove of ancient artifacts that included anchors, pottery and a meter-long (yard-long) sword.

The diver was about 150 meters (170 yards) off the coast in five-meter-deep (5.5-yard-deep) water when he made the discovery.

Experts say the area provided shelter for ancient ships and is home to many archaeological treasures, some dating back 4,000 years. But such discoveries can be elusive because of the constantly shifting sands.

Fearing his discovery might be buried, the diver took the sword ashore and delivered it to government experts, the authority said. The weapon is estimated to be 900 years old.

“It was found encrusted with marine organisms, but is apparently made of iron,” said Nir Distelfeld, an inspector in the authority's robbery prevention unit. “It is exciting to encounter such a personal object, taking you 900 years back in time to a different era, with knights, armor and swords.”

The sword is to be cleaned and further analyzed, while the diver, identified as Shlomi Katzin, was given a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship.

Mexico's 'huge step backwards' on energy — and the environment

Mexico's government wants to reverse the privatization of the energy sector that began in 2013, in order to provide stable prices. But critics say taxpayers and the environment will have to pay the price.


Mexico's state-owned energy company Pemex continues to rely mainly on oil and gas

Accompanied by an impressive graph, Mexican energy minister Rocio Nahle presented a new energy reform to the population earlier this week. It depicted the development of energy prices in various countries this year.

"This is the model that has been dominant in our electricity sector," she explained, pointing at Spain's steep curve.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that it was a "market dominated by private individuals seeking to enrich themselves."

The partial opening of the electricity market to private suppliers that began in 2013 is not going to be continued. The state-run Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will continue to dominate the market, with at least a 54% share. It will also regain the regulatory powers it had lost to autonomous bodies in 2013.

There will be more state and less market. And according to some experts, this entails more risks than opportunities — especially for the environment.

Mexico's energy secretary, Rocio Nahle, insists climate goals will be met

'Modernization welcome'

"This is an ambiguous and contradictory reform," said Pablo Ramirez, an energy expert at the environment NGO Greenpeace. But he did see a positive development in the fact that the state was looking at the energy transition, as did the energy expert and lawyer Elvira Macin.

"The planned modernization of state-run electricity plants is welcome," she said. She added that it was a relief that the private suppliers currently producing 46% of Mexico's energy needs would retain their share of the market. However, she said that they would be put at a disadvantage by the new rules.

According to the concept presented by Nahle, preference will no longer be given to renewable energies and the cheapest supplier in the future but to the CFE.

Hydroelectricity and nuclear energy, which are both under the CFE's exclusive control, will be given priority, followed by geothermal energy and fossil fuels, which are produced by state oil monopoly Pemex.

Solar and wind energy, which are in the hands of private suppliers, will be ranked lowest in the hierarchy of priorities.

The parallel private electricity market on which, according to Nahle, Mexico's largest companies employed legal loopholes to secure cheap energy from suppliers of renewables by bypassing the CFE will be abolished.

Till now, private suppliers were only allowed to sell their electricity to the CFE or use it for their own needs.

Many of them had thus sold a small number of shares to large companies so that these could buy the energy directly from them for their supposed "own needs" at a lower cost.

In future, only private households will be able consume solar-powered energy that they produce themselves.

Mexico City is already heavily affected by smog

Will Mexico meet its climate goals?

Nahle has insisted that Mexico will meet the climate change goals put forward in the Paris Agreement. Mexico has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 22% and its CO2 emissions by 51%.

By 2024, renewables are supposed to meet 35% (compared to 31% now) of Mexico's energy needs.

In Sonora, the CFE is currently building the biggest photovoltaic park in the country.

Pablo Ramirez, from Greenpeace, was skeptical: "Mexico's dams are already suffering from climate change, producing an average of 30% less electricity. The lion's share of Pemex and CFE's investments goes to refineries and gas pipelines. All of this will further bias the energy mix toward fossil fuels," he warned.

Macin also predicted that this would be the case.

She explained that Pemex was already producing over 240,000 barrels of heavy fuel oil per day. Comprising the residues from refineries, it contains considerably more sulfur and other pollutants such as heavy metals.

Since a ban was introduced on burning heavy oil fuel in certain international waters, the market has shrunk, which is why it is now being used in CFE thermal power stations and causing air pollution.

'Huge step backwards'

The return to a centralized model was a "huge step backwards" that would encourage opacity and inefficiency, warned Ramirez.

"We are returning to a structure without free competition," agreed Macin.

She added that the state now faced being sued for damages worth billions by private providers.

"Ultimately, it is taxpayers who will foot the bill," she said, even if they will not see this on their electricity bills. She explained that if the CFE subsidized electricity, it would lose money and would have to be compensated by the budget. "This is money that would be better spent on education or health."

The combustion of heavy fuel oils is particularly bad for the environment

In a report issued earlier this year, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) was similarly critical of the reform, warning that it would have "negative consequences for public finances, the environment, and Mexican customers' welfare by making the electric system's services more expensive and by severely limiting opportunities for cleaner and cheaper electricity generation."

It calculated that a kilowatt-hour of energy generated by the CFE costs three and a half times more than one generated privately.

Pablo Ramirez takes a more nuanced view: "Energy should not be considered a commodity like any other," he said. "Because it is strategically important for a country's development."

He also welcomed the reform as being a step towards recognizing the right to energy as a human right. "But that doesn't mean it should take precedence over other fundamental rights, such as health or an intact environment," he warned.

What's at stake at COP26?

A UN climate summit in Glasgow will pressure world leaders to stop burning fossil fuels, stabilize global temperatures and share money to adapt to increasingly extreme weather.

Activists and climate scientists have criticized world leaders for failing to cut emissions

World leaders will meet in the UK in early November for the COP26 climate summit in a last-ditch effort to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.

The yearly summit, convened by the United Nations and delayed last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, is a place for diplomats to negotiate treaties to slow dangerous changes to the climate. In 2015, they signed up to the Paris Agreement — a non-binding target to keep warming well below 2 C above pre-industrial temperatures, and ideally 1.5 C — yet they continue to burn fossil fuels and chop down trees at rates incompatible with that goal.


Rich countries are switching to clean energy too slowly to meet their climate goals

Now, with the effects of climate change visible in rich countries as well as poor ones, they are meeting for what analysts expect to be the most meaningful conference since that pledge. Climate change has shot up the political agenda amid deadly weather extremes and mass public protest, and leaders of several polluting countries have pledged to decarbonize their economies by the middle of the century.

"Over the last two decades, we've gone from facing the climate challenge to living in a state of climate emergency," said Shikha Bhasin, a senior analyst at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a think tank in Dehli. "And that's exactly why the upcoming COP26 is critical."
What's on the agenda?

Under the Paris Agreement, world leaders get to choose how fast their country will cut emissions. They agreed to update their action plans for doing so every five years.

But just weeks before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, big emitters like China, India and Saudi Arabia have failed to submit new plans. A September report by UN Climate Change, the body that organizes international climate negotiations, found that updated plans account for only about half of global greenhouse gas emissions.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to focus on 'coal, cars, cash and trees'

The UK, which is co-hosting the summit with Italy, has pressured countries to submit new plans and is pushing for concrete deals that would help reach those targets. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called on world leaders to deliver bold commitments on "coal, cars, cash and trees."

The UK is pushing for a treaty that would "consign coal to history" and has proposed a deadline of 2040 to stop selling combustion engine cars. It also wants to put more money into stopping deforestation.
Who will pay?

A question at the top of the agenda will be how much money rich countries, which are most responsible for having polluted the atmosphere, will send to poor ones, which are hit hardest by climate change.

In 2009, the wealthiest nations agreed to send $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. But in 2019 they fell short of that goal by some $20 billion after stumping up just $79.6 billion, according to the latest estimates from the OECD. In those 10 years the Earth's average temperature had risen so much to make last decade the hottest on record.

The costs of climate inaction are growing as global temperatures rise

Analysts have said the failure to pay up is important for two reasons. First, because the money is needed, even if it isn't enough to cover the costs of climate change or a transition to renewable energy.

But it's also a diplomatic issue, said Jennifer Tollman, an expert on climate diplomacy at European climate think tank E3G. "Any international negotiations are built on a foundation of trust. The under-delivery on this $100 billion is obviously making that foundation crumble to a certain extent. "
What else matters?

Countries most vulnerable to climate change have called for greater attention — and funding — to be given to adapting to its effects.

Beyond that, there are technical details from the Paris Agreement that still need to be ironed out before it properly comes into effect. This includes rules around a global carbon market — the way countries trade emissions across borders and "offset" them by investing in projects that reduce pollution — and also the way countries should formally report cuts to their emissions.

The main talks, which take place over two weeks from October 31 to November 12, will bring together world leaders, scientists, businesses and civil society groups. Delegates from poorer countries have warned that travel restrictions, a lack of vaccines and accommodation costs will make it harder for them to come. That would make it more difficult to hold rich historical polluters to account.

Climate change has shot up the political agenda amid mass protests in recent years

At the last COP, in the Spanish capital, Madrid, in 2019, talks overran by two days as frustrated negotiators struggled to compromise on raising ambitions and failed to reach an agreement on carbon markets.

Climate summits have so far failed to hold countries accountable, but COP26 could be a chance to bridge some trust, said Bhasin from the CEEW. "This is what we have and so we have to find a way of making it work."

Brazil: Bolsonaro's veto on free menstrual products sparks outrage

President Jair Bolsonaro's veto of a bill to distribute free sanitary pads and tampons to disadvantaged girls and women has caused heated debate. Many in the country suffer period poverty.



Brazil has high rates of period poverty

Brazilian women are mobilizing against President Jair Bolsonaro. And this time, they could end up having their way on an issue that the president is anything but comfortable with — menstruation.

On October 6, Bolsonaro vetoed a bill to combat so-called period poverty, which occurs when people cannot afford or access necessary menstrual products. His move sparked an outcry in Brazil. Ever since, the country has seen furious debate over whether sanitary pads and tampons should be provided free of charge to girls in state-run schools.

But the veto could be overturned by Brazil's Congress in early November. The draft bill had been passed by the Brazilian Parliament in August and by a large majority in the Senate in September.

"It's not a matter of if, but of when Congress will overturn the veto," Brazilian federal deputy Tabata Amaral, one of the bill's co-authors, wrote on Twitter.

"We will not allow the inhumanity and machismo of Bolsonaro to determine the reality of 6 million Brazilian women who suffer from a lack of sanitary products and are humiliated because of it."

Menstruation remains taboo

In Brazil, menstruation is a taboo topic. According to a report by the UN children's aid agency, UNICEF, around 4 million girls in the country do not go to school when they get their period. A quarter of them have no money for tampons or pads.

Many schoolgirls in Brazil stay away from school when they get their periods

Period poverty affects not only schoolgirls but also women in prisons, homeless people and other families living in extreme poverty. According to the draft law, the cost of providing menstrual products for these groups would be around 83.3 million reais (€13 million/$15 million) a year.

Brazil's minister for women, family and human rights, Damares Alves, defended Bolsonaro's veto. She said in an interview with the Globo TV network that the government had to prioritize and had no funds to purchase menstrual products.

"We have to decide: vaccination or tampon. The problems of poor women have never interested any government in Brazil, and now Bolsonaro is being denounced as a monster just because he doesn't want to distribute hygiene products this year," Alves said.

Damares Alves: 'Vaccination or tampon' — and not both

Brazilian Congress will have final say

But the president of the Brazilian Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said he didn't accept the government's argument about a lack of resources.

"In Brazil, so much money is spent on countless things. It cannot be that young women from poor backgrounds with fundamental needs have to go empty-handed," read a statement on the conservative politician's website.

Pacheco could play a crucial role in the row with Bolsonaro. Under Brazil's constitution, he has the right to convene a joint session of the Senate and Parliament 30 days after the presidential veto. An absolute majority is required in both chambers of the Brazilian Congress to reject the veto.

Watch video26:01 Sanitary products: Cheap and sustainable?

"There is a good chance that Congress will overturn the veto," Pacheco's official statement said. "Of course, we cannot overlook the problems with funding, but we must find ways to provide menstrual products to young girls from poor backgrounds."
Sao Paulo leads the way

Many cities, municipalities and even states in Brazil have already found such ways. The draft law that is meant to ensure menstrual products are provided on a national level has, in fact, taken its cue from these local and regional initiatives.

In July this year, a law on free period products was passed in the city parliament of the megacity of Sao Paulo. In Rio de Janeiro, too, city officials have decided to provide menstrual products in state-run schools. And similar projects to provide free sanitary napkins and tampons are underway in several states in South America's largest country.

Worldwide, the number of countries guaranteeing a reliable supply of menstrual products for schoolgirls or in other social areas is still small (see graphic). But the number of initiatives is growing.

Scrapping taxes on menstrual products

Many countries are also trying to make menstrual products cheaper by reducing or eliminating taxes.

In Germany, for example, the value-added tax on sanitary pads and tampons has been reduced from 19% to 7% since 2020.

France, Poland and the United Kingdom have reduced VAT to 5%. And some countries, including Ireland, India, Malaysia and Nigeria have even scrapped the tax altogether, according to Statista, a German company specializing in market and consumer data.
Celebrity throws weight behind bill

For now, the debate over menstruation in Brazil is set to continue, at least until the showdown in Brazil's Congress in early November.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has to contend with the many fans of a prominent proponent of the bill. Juliette, a singer who has 3.9 million followers on Twitter, is pushing for the bill.

"If women don't have access to menstrual items during their periods, they don't have access to health care and education, either" she wrote on her Twitter account. "The presidential veto must be overturned. Menstrual poverty has to be taken seriously in Brazil."

This article has been translated from German

Feminist group sues Miss France over selection criteria

Issued on: 18/10/2021 - 

Miss France contestants must be single, at least 1.7 metres tall and 'representative of beauty'

 LOIC VENANCE AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

A leading feminist organisation in France said Monday it was suing the promoters of the Miss France beauty contest in a labour court, alleging they used discriminatory criteria to select participants.

The "Osez le feminisme" (Dare to be a Feminist) group, along with three failed contestants, said they were targeting the Miss France company as well as Endemol Production, which makes the annual TV programme screened on the TF1 channel.

The plaintiffs argue that the companies are breaking French labour law with discriminatory selection criteria by obliging aspiring beauty queens to be more than 1.70 metres tall, single, and "representative of beauty".

The French labour code forbids companies from discriminating on the basis of "morals, age, family status or physical appearance," Violaine De Filippis-Abate, a lawyer for Osez le feminisme, told AFP.

The case, filed at a labour court in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, will hinge on whether magistrates recognise Miss France contestants as de facto employees of the organisers and TV company.

Contestants do not sign an employment contract, but the plaintiffs point to a supportive judgement in 2013 when a former contestant on Mister France also sued for similar reasons.

The Miss France company declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

The next contest is set to take place in Caen in northern France on December 11.

© 2021 AFP

Sex workers speak out against German prostitution law

It has been five years since the German government enacted the prostitution protection act. Lawmakers say it protects vulnerable people; many sex workers say it is discriminatory, stigmatizing and has increased risks.


During the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, unregistered sex workers in Germany were unable to claim compensation

Olivia, who has been a sex worker in Berlin for almost a decade, is pragmatic when asked about the regulation of her industry.

"It's not without reason that people say it is the oldest profession in the world," she says, smiling. "People will always find a way to do sex work."

The job was not always her plan. She moved to the German capital from a small city in the east of the country looking for a more exciting life and fell into the work after a friend recommended it. Now in her late 20s, she has undertaken just about every kind of sex work possible in Germany: with a luxury escort service, as an erotic masseuse, in a brothel and self-employed in her own home.

"There are different levels," she explains — with highly different incomes and safety measures attached. Through her work, she has found a community, also with the Black Sex Workers' Collective, a US-founded initiative for people of color. She is also a member of a sex workers' union.

But she is one of hundreds of thousands of unregistered sex workers in Germany who, for the last five years, has risked prosecution to keep working.

Olivia, an unregistered sex worker in Berlin, wants to stay anonymous

Over 90% are unregistered

When she began, sex workers' rights in Germany were relatively well protected. The 2002 Prostitution Act formally regulated sex work and aimed to protect sex workers' access to benefits such as health care and unemployment insurance.

But some lawmakers were concerned that the law was too lax. "There are stricter rules to open up a snack bar than a brothel in this country," former Families Minister Manuela Schwesig, from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), told German newspaper Die Zeit in 2014. A year later, her coalition government presented the bill of a new law that would require all sex workers to apply to register their work. The law was enacted on October 21, 2016, and came into force on July 1, 2017. 

For sex workers, this means handing over private data like your address, contact details and real name and going through regular compulsory health consultations. People who do not register, some because of privacy concerns and others because they do not have an address or legal residency status in Germany, are breaking the law.

The act also requires condoms to be used during sex work and requires anyone running a sex work business, like a brothel, to have a permit.

The last federal official statistics from 2019 showed that there were around 40,000 sex workers in Germany legally registered under the Prostitution Protection Act, but unofficial estimates say the real number is over 400,000. This means over 90% of sex workers in Germany are unregistered — and technically illegal.

The vast majority of legally registered sex workers work in brothels, suggesting also that most of those who are unregistered work from home or on the streets.

The 2017 law is unpopular among sex workers: 'No registration of sex workers'

 says this sign

Privacy concerns

The aim of the law was to improve conditions for sex workers and reduce the possibility of human trafficking, exploitation and slavery. But sex workers say it has actually made their position more vulnerable.

"People who have no idea about sex work say: 'It's just a pass, that's not so bad.' But sex work is still a very stigmatized job in Germany. And that means that many people can't really 'out themselves,' or know that their data is being recorded somewhere," Ruby Rebelde, a spokeswoman for the Hydra organization, explained.

The Berlin-based advocacy and counseling service for sex workers was founded over 40 years ago and has opposed the law since it was enacted.

Many sex workers in Germany come from other countries, and the bureaucratic hurdles of the registration process may prevent them from carrying it out. EU members Romania and Bulgaria are the two most common countries of origin for registered non-German sex workers, but Rebelde from Hydra believes that foreign sex workers are less likely to register than Germans.

"And it means people who come to Germany to work as sex workers are additionally 'made illegal' under the prostitution protection act," Rebelde said. Among other things, this meant that all unregistered sex workers could not receive government aid when they were unable to work during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. The number of registered sex workers also significantly decreased during this time.
'Working together is safer'

Under the law, sex workers could not live and work together as a pair or larger group — a common arrangement offering security to sex workers if clients prove violent or attempt blackmail — because technically a shared apartment or house would constitute a brothel.

"If I can only work alone at home, in theory, that puts me in more danger," Olivia said. She has experienced more blackmail and abuse attempts in the years since the law was introduced than before when working alone in her apartment.

"Working together is much safer because you can keep an eye on each other and share experiences," explained Ruby Rebelde.

But supporters of the law say it has made sex work less opaque and in fact increased safety.

"With the registration according to the Prostitution Protection Act, the state has the opportunity to shed light on people's rights in the field of sex work," said Ann-Kathrin Biewener, sex work spokeswoman for the city of Berlin and elected representative for the SPD. She is responsible for overseeing the registration process for the whole city of Berlin.

"With registration, sex work does not take place in secret and thus helps to improve working conditions for sex workers," she added.

A 2019 'Whore Parade' in Berlin aimed to fight stigma against sex workers

The Nordic model?

During the pandemic, when sex work was banned under social distancing rules, lawmakers from the SPD and from Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrat party took the opportunity to call for an even longer closure to brothels and overhaul of the sex work industry.

The solution touted by them and many others is the so-called Nordic model, under which paying for sex is illegal but selling sex is not.

But Olivia does not believe that such an arrangement could work in Germany and would just send sex work even more underground.

"It would not stop anything. The prices would become more expensive; there would be more criminality and violence, blackmail, more human trafficking," she said. "I cannot see a positive side."

A federal evaluation of the act is planned to be completed by 2025; an interim report covers only the years 2017 and 2018. So far, there is not enough evidence to show whether any of the act's laws, for example in reducing human trafficking, have been successful.

Several states have published their own evaluations in the meantime. The evaluation of the city-state of Bremen from December 2020 describes the smoothing running of the registration process in Bremen but also notes: "Sex workers and professional politicians criticize that the law does not meet the requirements of better protection against trafficking and an improvement in the situation of prostitutes. They fear stigmatization and discrimination as a result of the obligation to register with the authorities and state. They say prostitutes, in particular, remain unprotected because the law is not geared to their needs."

Lawmakers like Ann-Kathrin Biewener in Berlin have worked to collect feedback at a series of "round table" events for sex workers over the years. For Rebelde from Hydra, it is vital that whatever the next steps are, the voices of sex workers are taken into account during the upcoming federal evaluation.

"Talking about sex workers without talking to sex workers — that is not OK," she said.