“Not one step back” in compliance with the region’s demographic agenda, demanded activists at the Second Session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, held Oct. 6-9 in Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Oct 10 2015 (IPS)

“The countries of Latin America have not fully committed themselves to the international conventions and have not given indigenous peoples access. Nor have their contents been widely disseminated,” to help people demand compliance and enforcement, said Guatemalan activist Ángela Suc.

The indigenous community organiser’s criticism is an alert regarding the pledges made at the Second Session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, organised Oct. 6-9 in Mexico City by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations population fund (UNFPA).

“We need land, territory, and access to culturally sensitive healthcare and education in line with our traditions and knowledge and in our languages,” Suc told IPS.

Suc, a representative of the Pocomchí people in the Guatemalan delegation to the conference, said the native population also experiences demographic phenomena such as migration and ageing, just like the non-indigenous population in the region.

The vicissitudes of native and black populations were part of the focus of the debates at the conference, which followed the one held in Montevideo in August 2013. A civil society gathering was also organised parallel to the official conference.

Participants discussed the problems still affecting these groups, such as poverty, discrimination, lack of opportunities, and high maternal and infant mortality rates.

More than 45 million indigenous people live in this region of around 600 million. They belong to over 800 native groups, according to the ECLAC report “Indigenous peoples in Latin America: progress in the last decade and pending challenges for guaranteeing their rights.”

Brazil heads the list, with 305 different native groups, followed by Colombia (102), Peru (85) and Mexico (78). At the other extreme are Costa Rica and Panama (nine), El Salvador (three) and Uruguay (two).

The countries with the largest numbers of indigenous people are: Mexico (nearly 17 million), followed by Peru (7.2 million), Bolivia (6.2 million), and Guatemala (5.9 million).

ECLAC reports the fragile demographics of many native peoples, who are at risk of actually disappearing, physically or culturally, as observed in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

The problems they face include forced displacement from their land, scarcity of food, pollution of their water sources, soil degradation, malnutrition and high mortality rates.

Birth rates are dropping in the region, with an average of 2.4 children per indigenous women in Uruguay, 4.0 in Nicaragua and Venezuela, and 5.0 in Guatemala and Panama.

Map of indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, drawn up by ECLAC, which estimates the number of native people at 45 million. Credit: ECLAC

Infant mortality rates among indigenous people are still higher than among the rest of the population. The biggest inequalities are found in Panama, Peru and Bolivia, in that order. And malnutrition is a major problem in Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

The ECLAC report stresses that indigenous children grow up in material poverty and that violence against native children and women remains a major challenge.

Of the region’s 12.8 million indigenous children, 2.7 million are in Mexico, 2.4 million in Guatemala, and 2.2 million in Bolivia.

“Our demands have been set forth in different international platforms and are still valid,” Dorotea Wilson, general coordinator of the Network of Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean and Diaspora Women (RMAAD), told IPS.

“We are going to monitor, observe and follow up to ensure that countries assume these commitments and comply with them,” said the Nicaraguan activist, who also took part in the regional conference. She added that compliance with the measures in favour of minorities requires political will, as well as agreements between the authorities and civil society, and specific budgets.

More than 120 million afro-descendants also live in the region, including 97 million in Brazil, one million in Ecuador and 800,000 in Nicaragua, according to national census data that included specific questions about ethnic identity. In other countries there are no specific statistics, such as Colombia, which has a significant black population.

The report “Afro-descendant Youth in Latin America: Diverse Realities and (un)Fulfilled Rights”, produced by ECLAC in 2011, showed that teen motherhood among young blacks was more widespread than among the rest of the population, especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama.

One of the problems discussed at the conference is the lack of demographic statistics on the region’s afro-descendant population.

In the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, which contains the conclusions reached by the first edition of the conference, the region’s countries pledged to take into account the specific demographic dynamics of indigenous people in the design of public policies, and guarantee their right to health, including sexual and reproductive rights, and to their own traditional medicines and health practices.

They also agreed to adopt the necessary measures to guarantee that indigenous women, children, adolescents and young people enjoy full protection and guarantees against all forms of violence and discrimination.

With respect to blacks, they agreed to tackle gender, race, ethnic and generational inequalities, guarantee the enforcement of their right to health, in particular sexual and reproductive health, and promote human development in this population group, while ensuring policies and programmes for improving women’s living conditions.

The plenary of the second conference approved the “Operational guide for the implementation and follow-up of the Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development”, which includes 14 provisions for indigenous and afro-descendant peoples.

Approval of the guide was hindered by the Caribbean delegations’ protest that they had not been given the document ahead of time – an obstacle that was not resolved until the early hours of the morning of the last day of the conference.

“To the extent that full participation by indigenous peoples exists, the guide will be complied with. This is a challenge for the State,” Suc said.

The process can be an engine driving progress in the U.N. International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024.

“The guide can be improved. We can influence the follow-up. But it is a challenge,” Wilson said.

The Political Declaration of the Social Forum held parallel to the official conference, which brought together social organisations from throughout the region, stressed that every indicator in the guide should be broken down by age, sex, gender, race and ethnicity.

But it also complained that two years after the approval of the Montevideo Consensus, the “ambitious, innovative agenda has not yet translated into substantive progress, and in some cases there have even been setbacks” in areas such as gender violence, hate crimes, high maternal mortality rates, a rise in teenage pregnancies, and discrimination.

Edited by Estrella Gutierrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Representatives of 38 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean meeting this week in the Uruguayan capital urged governments in the region to consider modifying their laws on abortion, which are among the most restrictive in the world.

The Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development calls on “States to consider amending their laws, regulations, strategies and public policies relating to the voluntary termination of pregnancy in order to protect the lives and health of women and adolescent girls, to improve their quality of life and to reduce the number of abortions”.

The document was adopted at the end of the first session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which ran Monday through Thursday.

Daptnhe Cuevas, of the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network, said their reaction to the outcome of the conference was “jubilation.”

Uruguay’s deputy minister of health, Leonel Briozzo, presided over the regional conference on population and development. Credit: Courtesy of the Public Health Ministry

We feminists came here with a series of clearly outlined proposals that were taken up integrally by the governments, which sent out a strong signal to the world that in Latin America, women’s rights are on the rise.”

Speaking with IPS just after the negotiations came to a close, the Mexican activist described the result as “a resounding success” and praised the governments for “rising to the demands.”

The Montevideo Consensus also urges the governments to “Ensure, in those cases where abortion is legal or decriminalised under the relevant national legislation, the availability of safe, good-quality abortion services for women with unwanted and unaccepted pregnancies”.

In Latin America, first-trimester abortion is only legal on demand in Cuba, Mexico City and, since 2012, Uruguay. In the rest of the countries, it is only allowed in exceptional cases – such as risk to the mother’s life or rape – or under no circumstances at all, such as in Chile, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

This week’s meeting, organised by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Uruguayan government with support from the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), also brought together 24 regional and international agencies and 260 non-governmental organisations.

The document contains over 120 measures concerning the eight priority areas to follow up the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994.

The recommendations will be the input of Latin America and the Caribbean to the meetings of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development and the General Assembly, to be held in New York in April and September 2014, respectively.

The participants in the meeting numbered over 800, which made it one of the largest intergovernmental conferences in recent years in the region, according to ECLAC.

Cuevas said central demands of the women’s movement were echoed. The final document reaffirmed, for example, the concept that “a secular state is an indispensable condition for the rights of women to be exercised.”

The Montevideo Consensus states that “a secular state is one of the elements fundamental to the full exercise of human rights, the deepening of democracy and the elimination of all forms of discrimination”.

At the close of the conference, Uruguay’s deputy minister of public health, Leonel Briozzo, said the agreement was a sign that “Cairo isn’t moving backwards, but forward.

“We significantly expanded on what Cairo set forth, and we did so from a diversity of viewpoints that were completely respected. As a region that carries the sobriquet of inequality, we are giving an example of democracy,” he said.

“We were able to reach an agreement where no one was trampled on and no one was ignored. This collectively-built construction reflecting agreement on more than 130 points was made by all of us together. It is ours, and it is for the world as a whole.”

The countries also agreed to apply a human rights approach with a gender and intercultural perspective when dealing with population and development matters.

They also committed to spend more on youth, especially in public education, and to implement comprehensive sexual and reproductive health programmes, with a priority on prevention of teen pregnancy.

In addition, they agreed to adopt measures to ensure better quality of life for the elderly.

Another stride forward underscored by Cuevas was the recognition of sexual rights and reproductive rights as separate concepts.

“We took another step forward by recognising them separately,” she said. “What was approved 20 years ago in Cairo referred to reproductive, but not sexual, rights.

“Information has advanced, we have clear concepts, and we know that sexual rights are not necessarily linked to reproduction,” she added. “They’re different issues dealing with different bearers of rights, and on this occasion we managed to get that reflected in the agreement.

“The discussions were very different from discussions at past conferences. I think the tone changed substantially, and it changed because women were seen as people of flesh and blood,” she said.

The declaration also clearly states, she said, “the right to sexual orientations and gender identities. Gender identity can be varied, and the effort had never been made to mention that in a regional accord. That was included for the first time; we had no precedent in any previous consensus, and it is very important.”

Teresa Lanza, head of Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir/Bolivia – the Catholics for Choice partner in Bolivia – told IPS that “the next step is for this to be translated into political will and big enough budgets to ensure that everything that was achieved here truly works and becomes a reality for all women in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The activists attributed a large part of the advances made to Uruguay’s leadership. Cuevas said that “In the United Nations system, we generally find that the base document doesn’t really tread too much on anyone’s toes, and if you start to compromise, you won’t necessarily win.

“Uruguay set a high starting point, and that made less strident, ideological positions possible in the negotiations and dialogue,” she said.

Point 88 of the declaration calls on countries to “Respect and guarantee the territorial rights of indigenous peoples, including those of peoples living in voluntary isolation and those in the initial phase of contact, with special attention to the challenges presented by extractive industries and other major global investments”.

Chile had initially voiced reservations regarding this point.

Quechua activist Tania Pariona of the Network of Organisations of Indigenous Youth of Peru told IPS that “the work here was collective.”

“The states were fairly open to civil society,” she said. “There has been a good reception, a good vision of what is wanted for the future of the region, and that’s a step forward.”

Mariela Castro speaking at the conference on population and development in Montevideo. Credit: David Puig/UNFPA

By Raúl Pierri
MONTEVIDEO, Aug 15 2013 (IPS)

Latin America and the Caribbean cannot hope to have truly advanced, progressive policies in sexual and reproductive health as long as women do not have the right to decide to interrupt their pregnancy, says Mariela Castro.

“To me it is shameful that many women in the region are still forced to decide between prison or death,” said Castro, director of Cuba’s National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX) and a member of the high-level task force for the International Conference on Population and Development.

The sexologist, who is the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, said there is a “witch hunt” against women in Latin America and the Caribbean by governments that describe themselves as democratic.

Castro sat down with IPS during lunch break at the first session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is being held Aug. 12-15 in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

As director of CENESEX, Castro has led campaigns in Cuba against the spread of HIV/AIDS and to advocate the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Thanks to a draft law she sponsored, Cuba became the first country in the region to offer free sex reassignment surgery to transgender people.

Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: What do you think are the biggest advances in Cuba in recent years, in sexual and reproductive health and sex education?

A: Very important work has been done, starting with the efforts of the Federation of Cuban Women in the 1960s. In 1965, abortion began to be provided free of cost by the national public health system, carried out by experts in the health system’s institutions, with the woman’s consent.

Abortions were available in Cuba before the (1959) revolution, but the procedure was very expensive and was practiced in private clinics. Unsafe clandestine abortions were a major cause of maternal mortality.

So the Cuban state decided to make it a service provided by the public health system. There is no law on abortion. It was established by a Public Health Ministry resolution.

The National Family Planning Programme was created in 1964 and the National Sex Education Programme began to be designed in 1972.

When the Communist Party of Cuba held its first congress in 1975, sex education was established as a state policy, with the primary responsibility put on the family and schools.

In 1988 and 1989, the National Centre for Sex Education was created under the Public Health Ministry.

Q: What is the situation today in Cuba in terms of respect for sexual diversity?

A: Cuba, like the rest of the countries in the world, reproduced the homophobic system that cultures and the sciences also helped impose.

The medical sciences imposed the view that homosexuality was an illness and that these people should undergo therapy aimed at turning them into heterosexuals.

It wasn’t until May 17, 1990 that the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘depathologised’ homosexuality. My country was homophobic like the rest, but what is said about Cuba in that sense is exaggerated.

The idea of a project based on the principles of social justice and equality and solidarity among human beings created the foundations for us to continue the struggle against discrimination, within the revolutionary process itself.

In January 2012, when the Communist Party conference was held, the objective of fighting all forms of discrimination, including on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, was included for the first time.

Q: What can Cuba contribute to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean?

A: Last year, Cenesex organised a meeting of experts on sex education from Latin America and the Caribbean with the aim of sharing experiences and forging alliances to help push these issues forward in the region, and we approved a declaration.

We also want to exchange materials and information. We keep a close eye on new legislation in the region, so that we can also incorporate elements that can be useful for us.

Q: Very important steps towards equal marriage have been taken in Latin America. What’s the situation in Cuba?

A: As a Latin American, I feel very proud that Argentina, Uruguay and the Federal District of Mexico City have legalised the right (to same-sex marriage). I think it’s fascinating. What I am constantly advocating is for this to also happen in other countries, including Cuba.

The thing is that in Cuba, marriage is not considered very important, since most couples just live together, and they enjoy the same rights as married couples.

So the LGBT movement doesn’t put an emphasis on this; they are more interested in defending their economic rights. But if we’re going to talk about rights, we have to talk about the same opportunities, including marriage.

Q: What role should the media play in sex education?

A: I advocate an ongoing strategy of education, accompanied by constant communication. We are training journalists, communicators and artists all the time.

One example that showed that the media are not prepared to deal with an issue was what happened in 1988, when the first free sex change surgery was performed in Cuba.

The doctors who did the operation presented their experience at a congress. A journalist who was there published it in his newspaper, which triggered a debate. Many people sent letters to the government saying it was appalling.

The Health Ministry, which didn’t have the tools to defend itself, decided to suspend the operations, and we had to wait 20 years.

Today we’re the only country that has a strategy for integral care for transsexuals, with free specialised sex services to carry out the transformations that they need in their bodies to bring them into line with their gender identity.

There is also an overall strategy to modify policies, awareness and laws, so that transsexuals are respected.

Q: What are the expectations for this conference in Montevideo?

A: It’s very important for our region to at least reach agreement on a declaration where (the countries) commit themselves to respect, protect, and comply with sexual and reproductive rights.

We want this conference to take a stance in favour of access to quality information, education and services, so that all young people have universal access to sex education provided within and outside of school.

We cannot accept crumbs when it comes to rights. We cannot expect advanced or progressive policies in health if we don’t mange to establish agreements on issues like these.

Q: And with regard to abortion?

A: My hair stands on end when I see that in our continent only Cuba, Guyana and now Uruguay have laws that respect women’s rights to decide about their bodies in situations involving reproductive health, such as the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.

To me it seems like a witch hunt. I think it is shameful that many women in the region are still forced to decide between prison or death, or that countries that define themselves as democratic talk about democracy without having advanced on issues like these.

Excerpt:

Ahmad Alhendawi, the U.N. secretary general's special envoy on youth, speaks with participants in the programme Jóvenes en Red (Youth Net) from Manga, a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Montevideo. Credit: David Puig/UNFPA

By Raúl Pierri
MONTEVIDEO, Aug 13 2013 (IPS)

Shortcomings in the educational system in Latin America and the Caribbean fuel inequalities that remain hurdles to access to the labour market and safe sex for a large part of the region’s youth.

Around half of the region’s sexually active youngsters have never used any form of birth control, and an estimated 20 percent of children in the region were born to mothers between the ages of 10 and 19.

The HIV/AIDS rate, meanwhile, has declined but remains high: some 250,000 Latin Americans aged 15 to 24 are living with HIV.

These statistics were reported at the first session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, running Aug. 12-15 in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

Marcela Suazo, regional director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said the problem is that “there is insufficient access to sex education in the region.

“Sex education is still missing from the basic national curriculum in many public schools, although some private schools are providing knowledge and information,” she told IPS.

Suazo said that as medical care continues to advance, education and information on sexual and reproductive rights remain limited, which makes it difficult for young people to receive adequate attention.

The UNFPA official took part in a forum Monday to mark World Youth Day – observed Aug. 12 – ahead of the regional gathering.

This week’s meeting, which is assessing the progress made in implementing the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994, is organised by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Uruguayan government, with support from UNFPA.

Suazo also said sex education continues to face prejudices.

“Adults behave differently with people who we consider young and less prepared, who are thus treated in a prejudiced manner,” she said.

But even when good sexual and reproductive services exist, many young women do not use them because they fear they will be judged because of their sexual behaviour, she said.

“We need to overcome this barrier because it’s directly related to teen pregnancy, to the reproduction of poverty and inequality, which is a pending challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean,” she stressed.

Limitations on the sexual and reproductive rights of young women in Latin America directly influence their chances of completing their studies and avoiding poverty.

In this region, between 15 and 40 percent of young women say their first sexual experience was forced, while nearly 30 percent of adolescent girls are married before the age of 18.

The U.N. secretary general’s special envoy on youth, Ahmad Alhendawi, also stressed the importance of sexual education.

“We believe it’s fundamental for young people to know more about their bodies,” he told IPS. “Every six minutes a young person is affected with HIV/AIDS and this is unacceptable. These are dangerous numbers. We believe by providing tools and information we’ll be able to tackle this issue.”

According to figures from the ICPD high-level task force, the region is experiencing the largest youth cohort in history: Of the 600 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 26 percent are aged 15 to 29 – a demographic boom that should be harnessed, experts say.

But youth unemployment is the expression of a gap between education and the labour market.

“The education system is not equipping young people with the skills and the knowledge that they need to enter the labour market. This mismatch is daunting and shrinking young people’s chances to get decent job opportunities,” Alhendawi said.

“Globally, 73.4 million young people are unemployed, and this is a number that requires all of us to respond quickly to this problem,” he added.

Alhendawi underlined the importance of increasing investment in this age group, and called on governments and private institutions to provide financial services to enable young people to set up their own businesses, so that they can stop being job-seekers and become innovators and job-creators instead.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, only 10 percent of young people work in the formal economy, Suazo noted.

Young people “are the first to lose their jobs when there are cutbacks,” she said. “And when they want to get a formal sector job, they face requisites, like five years of experience, when they are just coming out of the university.”

Besides, she added, “we are facing a new industrial-technological revolution. Education systems should be reviewed so that they allow the development of the necessary skills, capacities and knowledge for young people to take part in this innovation.”

The UNPFA official acknowledged that education has improved in certain respects in Latin America. For example, 95 percent primary school enrolment has been achieved.

“But when we look at the secondary and university levels, the numbers start to come down considerably,” she said.

“Primary education does not manage to develop the necessary competence and skills for people to take part in development processes in productive areas,” she said.

The secretary general of the Ibero-American Youth Organisation (OIJ), Alejo Ramírez, urged governments to put a priority on youth when it comes to spending.

“The economic growth seen in Latin America in recent years has helped develop many sectors. But the youth, who are hardest hit by unemployment and inequality, are the last to be reached by public spending,” he lamented.

Only an estimated 20 percent of social spending benefits people under the age of 30, he said.

The OIJ also presented the First Ibero-American Youth Survey. Ramírez told IPS that the study’s main finding was that two out of three young people believe that in five years they will be better off, “pointing to a strong degree of optimism.”

A family inside their home in Cannon Camp in Haiti. Credit: Susan Robens-Brannon/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

Several years after the start of the economic crisis in the United States and Europe, which led to a shift in migration patterns, Latin America still lacks a more inclusive view of the phenomenon of people seeking a better life abroad.

This is seen as a critical factor to be discussed at the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, to be held Aug. 12-15 in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital.

In the two decades since the September 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, demographers have insisted on territorial inequality as one of the key factors in Latin America driving people to leave their homes in search of better quality of life.

The ICPD redirected the emphasis from demographic goals to rights, said Jorge Rodríguez of the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre.

“The focus became more social, and above all, more about rights,” Rodríguez told IPS. “The conference installed the question of rights on the agenda. And in the last 20 years, the importance of international migration for the region changed.”

Since the economic crisis hit Europe in 2008, there have been signs of slowing emigration from this region, and signs that immigrants are returning, Rodríguez said in Rio de Janeiro, at a Jul. 15-17 preparatory meeting for the regional conference.

“Now we are facing an emerging issue: the return of emigrants due to the economic crisis,” he said. “Latin America extended its migration networks. We are always looking at migration to the United States and Europe, but within the region there is a great deal of migration as well.”

This mobility has taken on more specific features in the case of environmental migrants – people forced to leave their home regions due to sudden or long-term changes to their local environment such as natural catastrophes.

“Now the concept is taking on much greater diversity, and it requires special treatment,” Rodríguez said.

Twenty years since Cairo, progress must be made towards respect for migrants, regardless of their legal status, said demographer and economist Duval Fernándes of the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais in southeast Brazil, who is also a member of the Latin American Population Association.

The situation of immigrants from Haiti, who fled their country after the devastating January 2010 earthquake, is a reflection of the challenges facing Latin America today.

Haiti’s severe environmental crisis was aggravated by the quake, which killed 200,000 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, besides public buildings and infrastructure.

To make matters worse, a number of storms may hit the country in the current Atlantic hurricane season (June to November).

Brazil appeared as an alternative destination for Haitian migrants immediately after restrictions were put in place in the neighbouring Dominican Republic – which shares Hispaniola Island with Haiti – and in the United States.

“The children of undocumented Haitians born in the Dominican Republic are not registered at birth, and are left stateless,” Fernandes said. “This prompted people to seek different destinations, and that’s where the possibility of travelling to Brazil emerged.”

Since November 2010, thousands of Haitians without the proper documents have entered Brazil across the northern border. Small cities in the Amazon hinterland were not prepared for the influx of immigrants, who arrived after complex, often harsh, journeys.

“It has become a calamitous situation,” the Brazilian demographer said. “Our countries don’t know how to deal with this problem.”

The legal process in Brazil has been slow-moving, because Haitians were not granted refugee status. An estimated 10,000 have arrived so far.

“They pay ‘coyotes’ (people smugglers) between 2,500 and 4,000 dollars, for the journey,” Fernandes said. “Multiply that by 10,000 people and we’re talking about 30 million dollars or so. This people trafficking racket has to be dismantled. The Haitians are deceived – they believe they’ll earn 2,000 dollars a month in Brazil.”

The solution found by the government was to grant them humanitarian visas. When they cross the border, the Haitians apply for asylum, and in six months the National Refugee Council rejects the request and refers them to the National Immigration Council, which issues the visas.

“The Haitians may be environmental refugees, but there is no official recognition of that condition. The big problem is that when the visas are finally granted, the people are somewhere else, and in some cases they don’t even find out.”

Fernandes proposed humanitarian policies and measures for Haitians and the creation of special mechanisms to regularise their migration status.

A regional agreement is needed to tackle the question of immigration in a more orderly fashion, said another expert interviewed by IPS, Gabriel Bidegain, technical adviser to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Haiti.

“A new human geography” was built in Haiti, because of the high levels of migration to the Dominican Republic and the United States, and later, Brazil, he said.

“Because of the crisis in the United States and Europe, Brazil became the new mecca: it began to be promoted as the ‘golden route’ and Portuguese started to be taught; it made sense that they would come,” he said.

However, the number of Haitians in Brazil is still a far cry from the size of the Haitian diaspora in the Dominican Republic – around 800,000 – and the United States – some 600,000.

And in Haiti, an estimated 400,000 environmental refugees are still living in camps around Port-au-Prince.

Bidegain called for a regional agreement on migration capable of providing a response to the vulnerability of those who are forced to leave their countries, especially because of environmental catastrophes.

Latin American demographers and government delegates analyse the region's population and development challenges in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 17 2013 (IPS)

Nearly 20 years after the landmark U.N. conference on population and development, the countries of Latin America have an opportunity to make headway with a new agenda on these issues, thanks to the favourable economic context that has made it possible to reduce social inequalities.

The situation in the region was debated at the preparatory meeting in Rio de Janeiro for the first session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, to be held Aug. 12-15 in Montevideo under the auspices of two specialised United Nations agencies.

Demographers and government representatives from the region were convened by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to a Jul. 15-17 meeting that took stock of pending challenges from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo in September 1994, which approved a plan of action to 2014.

The current context of economic growth and improvements in income distribution opens an opportunity for progress in the elimination of socioeconomic imbalances and improvement in quality of life, says the basic document by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Conference speaker Juan José Calvo, of the Uruguayan government’s population commission, agrees with this analysis of a Latin American population that over the last six decades has expanded from 167 million people to 596 million, according to 2010 figures.

“In the last 20 years we have seen extremely significant progress, in some cases giant strides, which does not mean that we do not still face big challenges, even in the same areas. In other words, we have lifted dozens upon dozens of Latin Americans out of poverty and extreme poverty, but that does not change the fact that it is still the main problem to be solved,” Calvo told IPS.

The ICPD programme of action recommended a set of interlinked quantitative goals, such as universal access to primary school education, with a special emphasis on girls; the promotion of health and reproductive rights, including family planning; the reduction of maternal and child mortality and morbidity rates; gender equality; and an increase in life expectancy.

In the framework of “sustainable development,” it took account of more general issues such as reduction of poverty and social, generational and ethnic inequalities.

In some countries these indicators improved, along with others that can help interrupt the cycle of inequality, like education. In Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, for instance, nearly all children and teens under 15 are in school, while on average in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, one-quarter of young people in that age range are out of the system, Calvo said.

Another stride forward was a rapid fall in fertility that began in the first half of the 20th century. Latin America and the Caribbean had some of the highest fertility rates in the world, at nearly six children per woman.

Four decades later, fertility in the region was below the world average of 2.9 children per woman, and in recent decades it has dropped to 2.17.

Since 1950, average life expectancy in Latin America and the Caribbean has increased by 23 years, to 75 years. During the same period, infant mortality plunged from 138 to 18 per 1,000 live births.

But these improvements are not evenly distributed among countries, regions or ethnic groups. “Latin America and the Caribbean remains the most unequal region on the planet, and that is probably its top priority challenge,” said Calvo.

“While we have made significant advances in most of the indicators that measure improvements in living conditions, there are still unacceptable gaps in sexual and reproductive health, poverty and education,” he added, referring, for example, to indigenous peoples.

Calvo said the basic problems could be traced back to the 1990s, when “the neoliberal governments that were predominant in the region gave up government planning as an instrument of public policies.”

At present, “several progressive governments have resumed planning, including demographic planning,” he said.

“Many have created social development ministries and institutes for young people and for women, for example, which are effective mechanisms for implementing more advanced regulatory frameworks,” he said.

However, not even these governments have been able to overcome internal conservative positions that hinder progress on issues like sexual and reproductive rights, regarded as “fundamental” by Brazilian demographer George Martine.

According to Elsa Bercó of Brazil, “fundamentalist” concepts blocked free discussion in Cairo of issues like sexual orientation, abortion and teenage pregnancy.

These issues “were not materialised in public policies or in the decisions of higher courts,” said Sonia Correa, the founder of the Brazilian women’s group SOS Corpo.

Martine told IPS that “In Cairo progress was made in terms of development, gender equity and reproductive rights, but not all of the agenda was discussed, and some touchier issues were left out of the debate for ideological reasons.”

He attributed this to “religious opposition, which is even capable of influencing governments whose own agenda is more progressive.”

Meanwhile, Magdalena Chu, the founder of the postgraduate course on Demography and Population at the Cayetano Heredia University in Peru, highlighted the region’s advances in sexual and reproductive rights.

“Nowadays there is more of a sense that people are free to plan their families, and to use this or that method of family planning,” she said. But she also blames conservative sectors for the fact that many governments have not been able to openly implement these policies.

Speakers at the meeting in Rio de Janeiro brought up other pending issues, like urbanisation processes and their consequences for the environment.

These are “inevitable” processes, but “there is a lack of policies on the part of administrators,” according to Martine.

“We have made advances on the road to development, but we still have a great deal to do,” Calvo summed up.