What’s Current: Finland’s female-led government to give fathers same parental leave as mothers

  • The government of Finland, led by Prime Minister Sanna Marin, approved a policy which grants nearly seven months of paid parental leave to each parent, as well as an additional month of leave for the expectant mother. 
  • Several prominent anti-trafficking organizations boycotted a White House event on combating human trafficking held by Ivanka Trump last week, citing opposition to the administration’s policies. 
  • Domestic violence is a major cause of homelessness in the UK as a result of budget cuts to aid shelters, according to a report by The Guardian. In 2019, 64 per cent of referrals to domestic abuse shelters were denied, and nearly 24,000 were made homeless directly due to domestic violence.
  • Canadian MP Laurel Collins argued in favor of decriminalizing sex trafficking in the House of Commons. In response, MP Arnold Viersen inquired if she had ever “considered” it herself. The debate was held in response to the recent murder of Marylene Levesque.
  • Over half of the sex trafficking victims in Hawaii are Indigenous Hawaiian people, according to research published by Arizona State University. Hawaii News Now reports:

“Of those identified as survivors, about a quarter of them said they were children when it happened for the first time, and the first person who preyed on them was a family member — either a parent, guardian, sibling, grandfather, or uncle.

The study determined that of the participants who said they were sex trafficked as a child, the average age is just under 12 years old.”

Genevieve Gluck

Genevieve Gluck is a writer and advocate for women's sex-based rights and creator of Women's Voices, an audio library dedicated to bringing awareness to feminist texts and speeches.