Increased Efforts by Modern States to Improve their Reputations for Enforcing Women's Human Rights

Authors

  • Kara Alaimo Hofstra University

Keywords:

state reputations, women’s human rights, United Nations, violence against women, human trafficking

Abstract

This study suggests that, since the year 2000, governments have been making greater claims and efforts to enforce women’s human rights. However, their motivations appear to be to improve their reputations in the international community rather than to protect women. The findings indicate that states are submitting reports to the United Nations on their progress eliminating discrimination against women on a timelier basis. Case studies of Eritrea, Thailand, and Yemen find that they report greater efforts to combat human trafficking—which spills across national borders and is thus visible to the international community—than to combat violence against women, a crime that is heinous and pervasive but often happens behind closed doors. This suggests that the nations’ motivations are largely reputational.

Author Biography

Kara Alaimo, Hofstra University

Kara Alaimo, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations at Hofstra University. She is a specialist in international and political communication. From 2012-2013, Dr. Alaimo was Head of Communications for the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, a group of heads of state and other eminent thinkers convened to recommend the world’s next plan for eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable development. In 2011, she was appointed by President Obama as Spokesperson for International Affairs in the U.S. Treasury Department, where she communicated global economic diplomacy initiatives, including America’s bilateral economic relationships; engagement in multilateral institutions including the G-20, World Bank, and IMF; and international monetary, trade, development, environmental, and energy policy. In this capacity, she also served as media adviser to Jim Yong Kim during his successful 2012 campaign for the World Bank Presidency. Dr. Alaimo also previously served as the first Press Secretary of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Global Media Coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign, and as a spokesperson for New York City economic development initiatives during the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Dr. Alaimo continues to serve as an independent communications consultant and is a member of the coordinating committee of the World Communication Forum in Davos. She recently served as a Visiting Scholar at the Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. and as a Resident Fellow at IAU College in Aix-en-Provence, France.Her book, Pitch, Tweet, or Engage on the Street: How to Practice Global Public Relations and Strategic Communication, will be published by Routledge. Her research on international and political public relations has also been published or is forthcoming in the Journal of Communication Management, Journal of Public Affairs, Case Studies in Strategic Communication, and Social Media & Society. To read her work, follow her Twitter handle, @karalaaimo, and visit her website at karaalaimo.wordpress.com

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Published

2016-05-15

Issue

Vol. 10 (2016)

Section

Articles

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