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ASIA: Region Stands up to U.S. Effort to Undercut Cairo Pledges
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Dec 16 (IPS) - In a clear show of regional solidarity,
Asia-Pacific countries are standing up to an U.S. government effort to
change existing international commitments to reproductive health rights and
services at a population conference here.
On Monday, the text of the action plan due to come out of the Fifth
Asian and Pacific Population Conference revealed the wide gulf between this
region's governments and Washington: More than 40 countries except for the
United States had agreed to endorse the plan.
''All countries excepting the U.S. government have agreed on the draft
text,'' a member of a South Asian government delegation told IPS. ''The
U.S. delegation has refused to compromise. It has stuck to one position,
and the gap between the U.S. and others have widened.''
The Republican administration of U.S. President George W Bush was all
but named for trying to undermine the regional gathering - and setting back
international commitments agreed many years ago - during the
ministerial-level segment of this conference, which ends Tuesday.
''One major power, which played an important leadership role at (the
1994 International Conference on Population and Development or ICPD in)
Cairo, has completely reversed its position,'' Steven Sinding,
director-general of the London-based International Planned Parenthood
Federation, said at the opening of the ministerial meeting.
''In the past few days it has continued to block consensus - a consensus
deeply sought by every other country in attendance,'' he added. ''Such
backsliding and intransigent opposition on the commitments to sexual and
reproductive health, made just eight years ago, should not be allowed to
continue.''
The U.S. delegation, however, is hitting back at its critics. It is a
''deplorable disinformation campaign,'' Eugene Dewey, the U.S. assistant
secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said during a
hurriedly-arranged press conference.
''We have made some efforts to improve the language of the text. This
has been interpreted as pulling away from the ICPD,'' he added. ''We are
not trying to overturn anything.''
As it stands, the 22-page plan of action has large chunks of bracketed
paragraphs, indicating the language in the document that Washington's
negotiators are disputing.
Among the sections with language that the U.S. is objecting to are those
on 'Gender Equality, Equity and Empowerment of Women,' 'Reproductive Rights
and Reproductive Health,' 'Adolescent Reproductive Health' and 'HIV/AIDS'.
By contrast, Asia's Muslim countries that have at times backed the Bush
administration's conservative views on reproductive health policies,
including Iran, and the region's largest Catholic country, the Philippines,
are supporting the action plan.
This regional conference, which runs from Dec. 11-17, seeks to affirm
and advance the landmark population policies endorsed by 179 countries,
including the United States, at the Cairo meeting.
Activists had hailed the Cairo programme of action as a milestone, since
it secured universal support for gender equality and reproductive health
services and rights.
It guaranteed women services to ensure safe motherhood, to enjoy the
benefits of voluntary family planning, to be guaranteed protection from
gender-based violence and be helped in the event of sexually transmitted
diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
The global debate at that time grew after some groups, including
church-based ones, interpreted reproductive health services as encouraging
early sexual activity and promiscuity, or abortion.
But the Cairo document did not have a ''hidden agenda, nor any secret
codes,'' Thoraya Ahamed Obaid, executive director of the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), said in a pointed reference to the emerging U.S.
policy on reproductive health that opposes services that it views as
advocating abortions.
''The phrase 'reproductive health services' is not a code for the
promotion or support for 'abortion services,'' she said. ''Nothing in the
proceedings at Cairo, or the five-year review, justifies describing them as
such.''
But Washington does not see it that way, says a hard-hitting statement
released by more than 40 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) following
the negotiating process here.
''The current U.S. administration is being held hostage by an extreme
conservative minority with little regard for the health, welfare and
freedoms of women of Asia and the Pacific,'' Ninuk Widyantoro of
Indonesia's Women's Health Foundation was quoted in the statement.
If the U.S. delegation gets its way, add the NGOs, the ''real progress''
made by the Asia-Pacific since Cairo - including programmes on gender
equity, women's empowerment, adolescent sexual and reproductive health,
access to sexual and reproductive health services and HIV/AIDS care
- will be undermined.
''The United States clearly does stand alone in its efforts to black
what is obviously a regional consensus to continue this vital work in the
struggle to improve health and improve poverty in the region,'' the
statement asserted.
''They (the U.S.) wants to take out language on condom use for young
people,'' said Sally Ethelston of the Washington D.C.-based Population
Action International. ''This is criminal in the time of spreading HIV/AIDS.
''In the U.S., they are promoting a policy of abstinence for youth.''
U.S. official Dewey confirmed that the United States ''advocates
abstinence as the healthiest form of behaviour for adolescents''.
The U.S. stance in Bangkok comes in the wake of similar tough positions
that the Bush administration has taken on reproductive health.
In July this year, the UNFPA announced that Washington had decided to
withhold 34 million U.S. dollars to this U.N. agency, saying that funds
were being diverted to fund abortions.
Earlier, in January, Bush announced a freeze on U.S. funding for
overseas organisations that provide family planning services, including
advice on abortions and counselling on parenthood, to women in the
developing world.
''They (the Bush administration) are playing to a domestic
constituency,'' said Ethelston. ''The onslaught on reproductive health in
the U.S. is getting underway.''
''What we are witnessing in Bangkok is ideological gynaecology,'' she
argued. ''It is stunning.'' (END/2002)
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