Kaiser Updates

World leaders must to do more to address the needs of migrant women and to protect them from human rights violations, such as human trafficking, according to this year's State of the World Population report released Wednesday by the United Nations Population Fund, New Era/AllAfrica.com reports. The report, titled "A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration," examines the "scope and breadth of female migration, the impact of the funds they send home to support families and communities and their disproportionate vulnerability to trafficking, exploitation and abuse," AllAfrica.com reports.

As reported weeks ago, the fetus fanatic group Center for Bio-Ethical Reform last week began flying banners over Montana cities with the words "Stop the war" and "10-week abortion" and a picture of an aborted fetus, the Billings Gazette reports.

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women this week is expected to finalize and release a draft report that says the Czech Republic government has not completely answered allegations that more than 80 Roma, or Gypsy, women from 1986 through 2004 were sterilized in the country without informed consent, the Christian Science Monitor reports. A 2003 report from the Center for Civil and Human Rights and the Center for Reproductive Rights cited 110 cases of Roma women who claim to have been forcibly sterilized since 1989 in state hospitals in eastern Slovakia because of widespread prejudice and fear against the Roma population.

Thirteen of the 79 Iowa judges who are running in the November election responded to a questionnaire sent by a conservative group that asked the judges to share their views on abortion rights and other issues, the AP/WHO-TV reports (Lorentzen, AP/WHO-TV, 9/6). The five-page questionnaire was sent by the group Iowans Concerned About Judges -- a coalition made up of the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America of Iowa, Focus on the Family, Iowa Christian Alliance, Iowa Family Policy Center and Professional Educators of Iowa.

Most people living in the U.S. disagree with the way liberals and Christian conservatives approach religious issues in the public forum -- including topics such as abortion and human embryonic stem cell research -- according to a recently released national survey on politics and religion, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the survey, 69% of respondents say that liberals have gone "too far in keeping religion out of schools and government," and 49% "express reservations about attempts by Christian conservatives to impose their religious values" on the public.