September/October 2009

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If the UN would only do what it is supposed to do.  Its priorities should be humanitarian aid in times of disaster, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, working to eradicate disease, feeding the world’s hungry and working for peace in troubled times.  If these humanitarian efforts were competently carried out by the UN, this organization would receive much acclaim and respect.  However, this is not happening.  The UN has not generally been successful in carrying out such humanitarian initiatives, for a multitude of reasons – one being that its real interest lies elsewhere.

In recent years, the UN has been attempting to force on the world the perspective that the UN is the global authority on values and behaviour, regardless of the sovereign right of nations.  The controversial positions the UN takes on abortion, sexual rights, homosexuality, women’s and religious rights, etc., have nothing to do with the treaties which state members have ratified.  Instead, the UN has set up an elaborate machinery to force its will on nations – regardless of whether the policies have been approved by member states in the treaties or otherwise. 

The UN is, in fact, at the forefront of the international effort to undermine families and faith, even though numerous treaties conspicuously provide that religious freedoms and the rights of families are being universally recognized human rights. 

The UN carries out its anti-family policies by way of the unaccountable, unrepresentative UN monitoring committees, which review each country’s compliance with UN treaties, and then berates certain countries for their failure to provide feminist/homosexual/abortion legislation, even though the treaties do not include such provisions.  For example, since 1995, there have been over 100 instances where UN monitoring committees, consisting mainly of pro-abortion NGOs, have pressured nations to legalize or increase access to abortion.  Moreover, UN agencies, such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have also established committees of their own to promote unrestricted sexual practices, as well as abortion, homosexuality and protection of the transgendered.  The most recent examples are as follows:

Sexual Guidelines

Two UN agencies, the UNFPA and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), proposed in June a set of international sex education guidelines, supposedly aimed at reducing HIV.  In effect, the Guidelines are aimed at changing the world’s culture on sexuality and calls for a $2.3 billion budget to fund abortions worldwide.  The UN plans to distribute these guidelines to education ministries, school systems and teachers around the world to help guide teachers on what to teach young people about sex.

The Guidelines are shocking.  They take the view that sexuality educators, not parents, have the responsibility over education on health and sexual matters.  These Guidelines are based primarily on the research undertaken by the highly controversial Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS).  One of the latter’s members assisted in the drafting of the Guidelines, which include the following:

§         Five to eight-year-olds are to be told “touching and rubbing one’s genitals…can feel pleasurable.”  They learn about “gender stereotypes” and that anybody (regardless of sexual status) can “raise a child and give it [sic] the love it [sic] deserves.”

§         Nine to twelve-year-olds learn about how to procure and use condoms, emergency contraception, the “signs and symptoms” of pregnancy, and all about sexual pleasure and orgasm. They learn that abortion is safe and they discuss “homophobia, transphobia and abuse of power.”  They learn about their rights – to decide for themselves about whether to become a parent and to have access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

§         Twelve to fifteen-year-olds are told about their right to safe abortions and post abortion care, how to use emergency contraception, and that the size and shape of the penis or breast does not affect sexual pleasure.

These Guidelines, understandably, have created a huge controversy.  As a result, UNFPA pulled back on the project, and has asked that its name be edited out of the published materials.

The duplicity and hypocrisy of UNFPA, however, knows no bounds.

UNFPA Hypocrisy

During the same week, in September 2009, that UNFPA pulled its name from this graphic sex guide, it co-sponsored a conference in Berlin, together with the German government, to train 400 activists to demand that countries fund and provide this sex education program and access to abortions to all youths.  The sessions at the conference focused on training activists to agitate for more money from countries and foundations in order to pressure governments to provide sex education and abortion, and to train youths to advocate for abortion and sexual rights.  Materials, entitled “Ensuring Women’s Access to Safe Abortion” and “I Need an Abortion”, were distributed to attendees.

Although this conference was billed as a “global” event, conference organizers admitted that they deliberately blocked any participants who did not agree with their “reproductive rights” (abortion) agenda.  Participation at the conference was by application only. Potential attendees had to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and provide detailed answers about the activities of their non-governmental organization (NGO), particularly how their NGO supports the "sexual and reproductive health and rights" aspects of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

Media representatives were also put through a similarly rigorous screening by the conference organizers. Citing "space constraints," media representatives were required to "apply" for the opportunity to cover the conference, even if paying their own way, and only those media in support of the Conference agenda were admitted.

UN Promotion of Social Rights for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

If the above is not sufficient to ring alarm bells about the UN, another committee of the UN, the Committee on Human Rights, is in existence in order to monitor compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  This Committee recently advised UN members that they must grant broad new human rights on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity”, as a new category of prohibited grounds of discrimination.  This Committee also demands in its interpretation of the treaty, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, that transsexual, transgender and intersex also be protected.  The Committee demands sweeping changes to national laws, policies and changing practices and attitudes within families and cultural institutions; non-complying nations will be in “violation” of their obligations under this international law.  (The document, called “General Comment 20,” was released on July 2, 2009.)

It is clear that the Committee has radically interpreted this UN International Covenant to include provisions for transsexual, transgendered and “intersex” rights.  That is, this unethical and unaccountable committee of “experts” is telling countries, which have repeatedly rejected ­this very interpretation, that they must now change their laws, policies and even attitudes about the family in order to accommodate this new homosexual agenda.

The Problem with the UN

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, appointed by former U.S. President George Bush, put his finger on the root cause of the problem with the UN.  According to Mr. Bolton, the UN has a free rein with its annual $15 billion budget (including $4 billion from the U.S.) to do what it likes.  This freedom is due to the shocking fact that the UN does not keep track of its spending!  As a result, over the years, there have been numerous scandals, such as the “oil for food” program in Iraq and ”cash for weapons” in North Korea, as well as the UN’s deviation into sexual and homosexual matters.  Unfortunately, the UN has been using much of its funds for this “rights” advocacy, rather than on services and humanitarian aid.

At the UN, liberal countries (like the European Union, (EU), and the US under President Obama) work in close partnership with the special interest groups of feminists and, more recently homosexual organizations to set the agenda.  Member states rarely debate these radical issues.  In short, these powerful special interest groups, working with UN officials and political blocs at the UN, have destroyed the original mission of the UN.

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