Volume 2, Special

February 8, 1999

UNFPA Carefully Scripts Outcome of Cairo +5 NGO and Youth Meetings at The Hague

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) The NGO Forum and the Youth Forum for the Cairo+5 review process ended last night at the National Congress Center in The Hague, Netherlands. Representatives from 800 non-governmental organizations participated in the NGO Forum, while 140 young people met at the Youth Forum. Both meetings are meant to advance the pro-abortion agenda of the host organization, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

    Pro-life lobbyists attending the meetings charge that the process was skewed from the very beginning. In fact, conference organizer Marianne Haslegrave of the Netherlands-based World Population Foundation admitted on Saturday morning that conference leaders used a quota system for pro-life organizations, limiting them to only four.

     Both meetings produced reports fully supportive of the highly controversial Cairo Programme of Action. Each report will be presented by UNFPA to the UN Member States and serve as advisory documents for the final preparatory committee meeting for a Special Session of the General Assembly on Population and Development (June 3 - July 2).

     UNFPA refers to both reports as "consensus" documents, a claim sharply disputed by pro-life lobbyists. They maintain the outcome of the meetings was fixed in advance. On Saturday morning pro-lifers learned that the NGO document would be drawn up strictly from the formal presentations of carefully pre-selected pro-abortion panelists, and from the work of an ongoing advisory committee.

     Jeanne Head, chief UN lobbyist for the International Right to Life Federation, and Peter Smith, representing the London-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, requested that a pro-life minority report be appended to the NGO document. Haslegrave refused. Dr. Wouter Meijer, Chairman of The Hague Forum, overruled Haslegrave and promised a pro-life voice in the document. Within hours, however, Marge Berer, head of the NGO Forum editorial group, flatly refused to include any dissenting voices.  

     Even more scripted was the Youth Forum, whose participants, according to Haslegrave, were selected by the country-officers of UNFPA. Patrice Pederson, a student at Brigham Young University, said most of the students she met belonged to NGOs founded by UNFPA. Pederson said each meeting of the youth representatives were overseen by adult UNFPA personnel who guided the discussions in the desired direction. Unsurprisingly, the youth document calls for reproductive education for children in grade school and omits parental supervision completely.

     Haslegrave responded to a query today about why "peer education" on "reproductive health" was advanced in the Youth Document. Seeking advice from other children and from health professionals was superior to asking parents, she said, because "nobody is likely to see a health professional who is likely to tell your mother that you went there."

     The Hague Forum for Cairo+5 governmental representatives began this morning. 

Home  |  About  |  Programs  |  Research  |  Friday Fax
Inside the UN  |  Center for UN Documents  |  Donate  |  Contact