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UN FINDS CANADA FRIENDLY TERRITORY

The UN's pro-abortion, anti-family policies seem to have found a comfortable home in Canada. Not only are the Canadian delegations incessantly pushing these policies at UN meetings, but Canada is also providing the facilities and opportunities to promote them.

This is indicated by the fact that in recent months, Canada has been the host of several meetings co-sponsored by UN agencies, where anti-family policies have been further explored and developed.

These meetings have, if nothing else, provided REAL Women with a front row seat on how the UN manages to manipulate proceedings in order to include its anti-family, pro-abortion policies in its documents.

1. Experts' Group Meeting on Gender-based Persecution York University, November 1997.

The UN's Division for the Advancement of Women held a meeting at York University in Toronto from November 9th to November 12th, 1997. The purpose of the meeting was to develop measures to protect women in armed conflict, a problem identified in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action.

It is the view of the UN's Advancement of Women division that women are at particular risk of gender-based persecution during armed conflicts (men don't have an enjoyable time during armed conflict either, but that doesn't appear to be an issue). Concern about women in armed conflict arose because events recently in Yugoslavia and Rwanda indicate that the strategies of rape and other sexual attacks were used as deliberate weapons of war in order to terrorize the civilian population as well as to carry out "ethnic cleansing".

Providing social, medical and legal assistance to women caught in such terrible situations is a very worthy objective. However, it quickly became apparent to REAL Women at this meeting that such concerns were being used by UN officials as a window of opportunity to promote the organization's own anti-family, pro-abortion policies.

For example: although none of the "experts" presenting papers at the meeting made any direct reference to "reproductive health" (abortion-on-demand) as a possible solution to the problems of raped women, abortion rights, nonetheless, mysteriously appeared in the conference's final document. This 18-page document, which consisted of sixty-seven densely written paragraphs, was supposedly drafted the evening prior to the final session by Christine Chinkin of the Law Department, London School of Economics. This report was supposed to be based only on the meeting's proceedings. It was obvious, however, that it was nothing of the sort. Rather, it was clear that it was drafted prior to the conference, with pro-abortion, anti-family policies included. The actual proceedings were only window dressing for an already settled agenda.

The recommendations in Ms. Chinking's report were adroitly pushed through the final session by the Chairperson, Hina Jilani of Pakistan, who would tolerate no interruptions or suggestions by pro-family observers, such as REAL Women or the Holy See. On the other hand, Ms. Jiani was open to all feminist suggestions. For example, the representative from the Holy See (The Vatican) questioned the provision in paragraph 53 (p. 15) which stated:

... Special attention should be directed to long-term health needs such as psychological trauma and reinforcement of violations of reproductive rights, such as being forced into bearing children or being denied the freedom to bear children. It is particularly recommended that WHO undertake initiatives to maintain and reconstruct health systems during
and after conflict.

The Holy See questioned whether this provision could be interpreted as referring to the imposition of an extensive abortion program on women after armed conflicts have ceased. Ms. Jiana said no. However, a request that this paragraph be clarified in the document was refused by Ms. Jiani. This clearly indicated to us that this reference was to be deliberately left ambiguous for the purpose of permitting abortion programs in the future. Ms. Jiani also refused to accept any recommendations that women who, for religious and cultural reasons reject abortion, be provided with proper care and support to carry the baby to term.

The chairwoman, at the end of the document review, only permitted the "experts" to vote on it, excluding the rest of us from any decision-making role. So much for the so-called democratic process and transparency of UN meetings.

Again, this conference was an example of the fact that Chairpersons at these UN conferences play a major role in pushing the UN's anti-life policies. It's obvious that the appointments to chairperson are not by chance, but, are carefully orchestrated from within UN structures to ensure they are individuals who are in complete sympathy with the UN's anti-family agenda.

Finally, we were not surprised that the final document included a provision that anyone holding a "feminist" opinion be treated as a political refugee. This would certainly be a very convenient opening for feminists to acquire refugee status in any country of their choice. Nor were we surprised to learn at this conference that in March of 1993, Canada issued "ground-breaking" guidelines on women refugees, and that Canada was the first country to formally recognize women as refugees if they were fleeing persecution because of their gender. The Canadian guidelines are now being promoted by feminists at the UN as the definitive standard to be used world-wide. A real coup for Canada!

The recommendations from this meeting are to be presented and discussed at the meeting of the UN Committee on the Advancement of Women in New York in March of 1998.

2. UN-Sponsored Meeting on Women's Health Issues 4th Canadian Conference on International HealthHull, Quebec, November 9-12, 1997

It was only by chance that REAL Women learned about a private meeting in Ottawa, which was sponsored by the Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH) and co-sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA). The conference was financially assisted by CIDA (Canadian International Development Association), the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Health Canada.

The theme of the conference was "Women, Health and Development". Dr. Nafis Sadik, past president of International Planned Parenthood, and currently executive director of UNPFA, gave the keynote address at the meeting during which she acknowledged that 171 nations have contributed $3.7 billion to UNPFA since it began operations in 1969. This is an enormous sum to aid in the destruction of the population of the Third World.

Women's Health Redefined

During the meeting, representatives from The World Bank, UNICEF, Health Canada, CIDA and IDRC all used the familiar feminist approach to the so-called "progress and advancement" of women. The issue of gender consciousness was prevalent and gender desegregated statistics were used to perpetrate a gender-based (i.e. feminist-biased) analysis of everything. Violence against women by men was proof of male oppression and control. It was also accepted at this meeting, without further study, that women have always been oppressed in the past and it is only recently, with women's liberation through feminism, that women have been freed. Freedom from child-bearing, through abortion, was seen as a plus for women's health.

For example, a non-Canadian woman (Dr. Helene Wirzba, Bangladesh Population and Health Consortium), who had been working on a project in Bangladesh (funded indirectly by CIDA), was asked, "In your work helping women in the Third World, what is the chief indicator of success?" She immediately answered, "Population control." She has been a landed Canadian immigrant for seven years, but admits to having spent fewer than eight months in Canada.

All Is Not Well In Feminist Utopia

It also became obvious during most question periods that there were serious problems with the western, feminist, anti-natal policies being imposed on Third World women. For example, it was disclosed during this conference that in Turkey, the Norplant contraceptive was being inserted into women and that when some returned with serious side effects, nothing could be done for them because the personnel had only been trained to implant the Norplant, not to remove it. It was also admitted that in poor areas of Brazil, many women have been sterilized without their knowledge. So much for freedom of choice ...

Real Health Care Needed

A genuine concern about poverty, maternal mortality and infant mortality was also expressed by some at this meeting. Concern was also raised that, although western medicine has succeeded in decreasing disease and mortality, these advances have not been duplicated in Third World Nations. Instead, the concentration there has been on contraceptives and abortion. Some project managers admitted that there is animosity in some areas of Third World countries between primary health care workers, who provide medicine to cure diseases, and population controllers. Funding is limited and when funds go to population control, there are fewer for genuine health care.

Abortion As Social Justice

One recurring theme at this conference was "reproductive rights are human rights" (which tells us there will be ongoing attempts made at future UN conferences to enshrine abortion as a right). The empowerment of women is seen as a primary issue of social justice, which can only be achieved if abortion is made available in every village of the Third World. As economic status is linked with lower birth rates, women are encouraged to find employment, which, in turn, gives them power and status which then enables them to insist on "reproductive health services".

Conclusion

Large UN conferences that have taken place over the past ten years, such as the UN Conference on the Environment in Rio in 1992, the Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, the Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and the Conference Habitat II in Istanbul in 1996 are, thankfully, in the past; no large scale conferences are being planned in the future.

However, the UN's obsession with abortion as an effective tool for population control in developing countries and its anti-family policies are now being ruthlessly promoted by way of smaller, and much more discrete conferences which are popping up around the world, recently, in such places as Toronto and Ottawa. This development has made it much more difficult to monitor what is happening at the UN. Experienced pro-life representatives, however, are doing what they can to keep track of these many conferences in order to alert others and to encourage pro-family delegates to attend them to block the UN's anti-life policies. Attending these conferences is an enormous responsibility, made under difficult circumstances, but REAL Women will continue to do its part in this regard.

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