Volume 4, Number 52

December 21, 2001

UN Report Claims no Coercive Practices in China, Report Disputed by Experts

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) In an effort to quell one of the controversies threatening its US funding-levels, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) sent investigators to China to assess allegations that coercion is still rampant within UNFPA-sponsored family planning programs.

     During October hearings of the House International Relations Committee, human rights activists described a series of secret interviews carried out by the US-based Population Research Institute (PRI) with women in Sihui county, one of 32 Chinese counties in which UNFPA operates. The women provided first-hand testimony of forced abortions, forced sterilizations, arrests and detention.

     In response, UNFPA sent a team of what its report called "independent," "impartial" investigators to China. According to the report, the team found no evidence of coercion: "The members of the team took every opportunity to talk to people - on the street, in family planning and mother and child care (MCH) clinics, in villages..No one expressed any grievances or complaints of any kind, or knew of any abuses in recent years..None seemed to know of any forced abortions." In meetings with the team, numerous Chinese officials pledged their commitment to international human rights standards, and said that UNFPA provided an essential example of coercion-free family planning. The report concluded, "the UNFPA programme is the key to smoothing the way to a truly client-oriented, quality-of-care approach throughout China."

     Steven Mosher, president of PRI, considers the UNFPA investigation deeply flawed. Mosher told the Friday Fax that he doubted the impartiality of the investigative team, noting that the team was largely comprised of UNFPA "employees and associates." He also discounted the value of assertions from the Chinese government. "Naturally," he said, "the officials denied any abuses."

     Mosher noted that the majority of the five-day investigation was spent with Chinese officials, at meetings, luncheons, even a barbecue. UNFPA's investigative team did spend thirty minutes interviewing citizens, but only with Chinese officials present. Noting the "intimidating" influence of the officials, whom he called representatives of "a brutal one-party dictatorship," Mosher could imagine why women refused to report cases of coercion. "(Our investigators) spoke to Chinese women in private. We protected their identity. Which approach is more likely to produce accurate testimony?" Mosher concluded, "The (UNFPA) report is part of a deliberate disinformation campaign about UNFPA's program in China; it is nothing more than a cover-up of its involvement in forced abortion in China."

     This report follows on the heels of the discovery of a UNFPA-sponsored report on Peru that, despite UNFPA denials, found ample evidence of coercion in that country. One UN observer believes that UNFPA learned from the Peruvian experience, and sent a delegation of mostly UNFPA personnel to China who would be thoroughly loyal to the UNFPA cause. Not surprisingly, they found no abuse whatsoever.

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