The United Nations Population Fund, which is generally called UNFPA, focused this week on one of the many crises caused by the Asian tsunami.
Among the 5 million people directly affected in the region, there are at least 150,000 women who are currently pregnant or who may be facing complications of pregnancy, including trauma-induced miscarriage, and need urgent medical and nutritional support. Over 50,000 women within the affected communities will give birth in the next three months; the damage to health facilities and loss of basic delivery care supplies has jeopardized their chances to deliver under clean and safe circumstances. Many of the midwives who traditionally provide home-based delivery support have been displaced and no longer have even basic supplies. Women who experience obstructed labor or other birthing complications (15 per cent of pregnancies, even under normal conditions) will require urgent assistance to ensure their health and the survival of their babies.
Other special needs are often overlooked. Women and girls, in addition to needing access to water, food, shelter and medical care, have particular hygiene needs which must be considered if they are to be able to carry on their daily lives with dignity, yet these needs are often overlooked in the larger emergency response. In some of the affected communities, women who have lost all possessions do not have access even to the most basic of clothing items which are required in order for them to participate fully in community life. Yet, in many cases, it is women and girls who assume the primary burden of caring for other family members and for obtaining the survival needs for the family.
In initial response to the crisis, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, has made available $3 million for the provision of the most basic maternity and hygiene support for women throughout the region. The Fund is also asking donors for additional funds to support the reestablishment of basic reproductive health care in affected communities in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.
With this in mind, I’d like to point out that UNFPA would have more resources right now to address these needs in the region, but the Bush White House decided to eliminate U.S. aid to the Fund.
It’s one of Bush’s crueler flip-flops. His administration initially backed UNFPA, including a $25 million appropriation in his first budget. In explaining why the administration sought increased support for the Population Fund, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2001, “We recognize that UNFPA does invaluable work through its programs in maternal and child health care, voluntary family planning, screening for reproductive tract cancers, breast-feeding promotion and HIV/AIDS prevention.”
Congress followed suit, voting overwhelmingly to support the request for funds.
Once Religious Right groups learned of the appropriation, however, they began putting pressure on the administration to reverse itself. Organizations such as the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and an anti-abortion group called Population Research Institute made unsubstantiated claims that the Population Fund spent money on forced abortions and sterilization in China. Douglas Johnson at the National Right to Life Committee told The New York Times that UNFPA is “a cheerleader and facilitator for China’s birth-quota program, which relies heavily on coerced abortion.”
The claims have since been thoroughly debunked. The Population Fund’s work in China is limited to 32 counties, all of which follow voluntary family planning programs. International investigations have confirmed that fact. British officials sent a team of officials to China that concluded in 2002 that the U.N. program was actually helping steer China away from draconian policies.
Not satisfied with the report from England or the studies done by 60 other international observers, the Bush administration sent its own team. In May 2002, the American investigators found “no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in the [People’s Republic of China]” and recommended release of the $34 million appropriation.
But that never happened. Bush, anxious to keep his political base happy, has never followed through on his earlier commitments to UNFPA and has barred U.S. funds for the agency for the last three years.
Now we’re seeing some of the results of Bush’s callousness.