Bush stops funds for UNFPA abuses; the U.N. population fund supports forced abortions and sterilizations

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 19, 2002 | by Steve Mosher

President George W. Bush has cut off U.S. contributions to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) for its support of forced abortions and sterilizations, after a struggle by UNFPA supporters in the State Department and the media to continue U.S. support. But even though media reports correctly pointed to China as the worst offender, other nations also have cooperated with UNFPA in policies coercing women. An investigation by the government of Peru offers conclusive evidence that the former regime in that country engaged in like practices.

In "an exceptional case of national legislation," the government of Peru in the early 1990s under former dictator Alberto Fujimori established the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) as the "technical secretary" of Fujimori's forced-sterilization campaigns, states a report issued by a special commission of the Peruvian congress.

Fujimori's National Population Program consisted of the systematic and forced sterilization of more than 100,000 women during so-called "ligation festivals," particularly aimed at rural women and minorities.

The report of the Peruvian congressional panel, called the Anticoncepcion Quirurgica Voluntaria [Voluntary Surgical Contraception] Commission, notes that Fujimori's coercive population-control campaigns "presupposed an inverse relationship between population growth and economic growth. Based on this mistaken presupposition, [Fujimori's] National Population Program established demographic strategies and methods explicitly restrictive and controlling; in this line, the United Nations Population Fund, known for its support of population, control in developing countries, took charge. For that end, the United Nations Population Fund act[ed] as Technical Secretary, working in coordination with the National Population Council.

"UNFPA increased their support and even participation in the task during the government of the ex-president Alberto Fujimori, especially in the period 19952000" the report states.

The coercive-sterilization campaigns "executed by the Peruvian government [under Fujimori] were induced and financed by international organizations, especially the United Nations Population Fund," states the report. The UNFPA, along with other international groups, "brought not only special financing but also demographic goals for the focalized reduction of the Peruvian population and the fecundity of Peruvian women, especially the women of rural areas."

The Population Research Institute first investigated UNFPA-supported forced-sterilization campaigns in Peru in 1998 and again in 1999. Victims of forced sterilization testified that women in Peru routinely are treated like animals by family-planning cadres, called "beasts" and "dogs" and forcibly sterilized. Based on this evidence, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that prohibits U.S. funds from going to nongovernmental organizations that support coercive-contraception programs.

Under federal law, the president of the United States has discretion to de-fund any organization that supports coercive sterilization or abortion. Despite this law, President Bill Clinton continued to fund UNFPA, providing more than $100 million over the course of his administration.

President Bush first placed a hold on funding for UNFPA earlier this year ($34 million for 2002) because of evidence that UNFPA supports forced abortions and other crimes in China. But now he has made the decision to cut all funding for UNFPA, despite the efforts of UNFPA allies inside the State Department to leak disinformation to the media in what appeared to be an effort to undermine the intentions of the president.

UNFPA denies that it supports forced abortions and sterilizations in China, Peru and elsewhere. In addition, major news outlets have reported that anonymous State Department sources have said that Bush is ignoring evidence contained in a State Department report compiled by a department fact-finding team that investigated UNFPA programs in China last May. But at least one news agency reports that the State Department delegation found evidence of coercion in several counties where UNFPA works together with the Chinese State Family Planning Commission.

The recent AFQ report is just more evidence undercutting UNFPA's claims that it supports only programs in which women are free to determine for themselves the timing and spacing of pregnancies.

STEVE MOSHER IS PRESIDENT OF THE POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE, BASED IN FRONT ROYAL, VA. HIS MOST RECENT BOOK IS HEGEMON: CHINAS PLAN TO DOMINATE ASIA AND THE WORLD.