Natalia Vodianova Now a UN Goodwill Ambassador for Women's Health
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Break the taboo. SuSanA Secretariat/Flickr, CC BY
Natalia Vodianova Joins UNFPA
The United Nations announced on February 24, that Natalia Vodianova has become the newest Goodwill Ambassador for the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA. Vodianova’s primary focus will be fighting the stigma surrounding menstruation.
“On any given day, more than 800 million women and girls aged 15 to 49 are actively menstruating. In many countries, taboos surrounding the cycle leaves girls vulnerable and can even be life-threatening, says UNFPA, as they are excluded from public life, denied opportunities, sanitation and basic health needs.”
In this critical new role with UNFPA, officially known as the UN Population Fund, Natalia Vodianova (daughter-in-law of Bernard Arnault) will seek to help culturally redefine menstruation, as a normal bodily function.
Vodianova’s Not New to Global Discourse on Menstruation
Over the past three years, Ms. Vodianova has teamed up with UNFPA to launch a series of “Let’s Talk” events worldwide, which have mobilised policy makers, civil society and the private sector to help tackle shame, exclusion and discrimination, faced routinely by millions of women and girls.
In 2018 the supermodel-philanthropist launched her first ‘Let’s Talk’ event in Antalya, Turkey, “Stigma and taboos around female health are deeply rooted in our cultures and held there with such an overwhelming power,” Ms. Vodianova said at the opening of the event organized on 25-26 October 2018 by the digital charitable giving platform Elbi and UNFPA.
A number of prominent fashion icons were among the participants, including sexuality education champion Anja Rubik from Poland, British model and “Gurls Talk” founder Adwoa Aboah, and Burak Çakmak, Dean of Fashion at Parsons School of Design and innovative thinker on the social impact of fashion. Dayle Haddon, model and adviser to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Seda Domaniç, editor-in-chief of Vogue Turkey, also spoke at the event.
Anja Rubik Activist
AOC notes especially the presence of Anja Rubik at the ‘Let’s Talk’ conference. Rubik has one of the strongest track recorders among fashion industry professionals as a fiery advocate and protester supporting women’s rights.
Anja Rubik Covers Vogue Poland December 2020 With Call to Action on Abortion Rights
Most recently, Anja bared her body on the cover of Vogue Poland, prompting Vogues worldwide to publish her letter on the total erosion of abortion rights in her country.
AOC shares an excerpt from her letter, published in full in our earlier post.
In 2020, our Poland is a divided country, and as a Polish woman, I have grave fears. Church and state have merged, giving birth to conflict and contradiction. A woman’s right to choose is under siege, the LGBTQIA+ community is treated like second-class citizens, and sex education is being phased out.
Poland has the strictest abortion legislation in the EU. Abortion is illegal with three exceptions [in cases of rape, incest or where there’s a threat to the mother’s life], and these exceptions are being slowly erased. This will affect not just our women, but our entire community. On 22 October, the Constitutional Court outlawed abortion in the case of severe and irreversible foetal impairment. This basically means that the state will force women to carry their pregnancies to term and give birth to children with severe deformities who may die, in extreme pain, just minutes after. The state is starting to interfere with our most personal decisions that impact our life, our destiny, our health and safety.
