The United States has again urged the UN population agency to end its family planning program in China until Beijing stops using coercion, forced abortions, and punishment to enforce its one-child policy.
President George W. Bushs administration has for the last three years barred all US funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), charging that its support for Chinas population planning programs allows Beijing to implement its policies of coercive (tvungen) abortion.
UNFPA has repeatedly called the allegations baseless, and uses money from other donors for its program in China. The UN agency has cited a US government report that found no evidence that it “knowingly supported or participated in … coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization” in China.
But Kelly Ryan, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, told UNFPAs executive board on Wednesday that its continued funding for Chinas “coercive reproductive health program gives it a UN seal of approval” which is very important to Beijing and which it does not deserve.
Chinas population and family planning law adopted in 2001 and its one-child policies “demonstrate that the birth limitation program clearly has coercive elements in law and in practice,” she said.
– If UNFPA would stop giving the “seal of approval”, I think we could move the ball along quite a bit more, Ryan said in an interview.
The Bush administration wants Chinas provinces to abolish regulations that, among other things, punish unplanned births, require couples to use contraception and require pregnancies be terminated if prenatal exams show the fetus to be severely deformed, said Ryan, whose speech included translations of regulations from several provinces.
She also argued that Chinas policies violate the platform adopted at the 1994 UN population conference in Cairo which says parents have the right to decide the size and spacing of their families.
Chinas deputy U.N. ambassador Zhang Yishan countered that Chinas 1,3 billion people account for one-fifth of the worlds population, and its per capita income is only 2,8 percent of the United States so family planning is essential for development.
Without its population policy, he said, Chinas population over the last 30 years would have grown by more than 300 million additional people, “which equals the entire US population,” he said.
Zhang said China was adhering to the 1994 UN platform which gives countries the right to set their own population policy. He stressed that Chinas population and family planning law stipulates that family planning workers “shall adopt no coercive measures in whatever form.”
As a result of Chinas 26-year cooperation with UNFPA, he said, China has learned “advanced international concepts on population and development and management methods” which have raised the level of reproductive health and family planning services.
In 32 counties where pilot programs were conducted, for example, maternal mortality dropped significantly and AIDS awareness increased, he said.
– A grievance mechanism has been established to protect peoples legitimate rights and interests, including hot lines at the national, provincial and pilot county levels, Zhang said.
The UNFPA board meeting was closed but China and the United States provided their speeches.
Sultan Aziz, head of UNFPAs Asia-Pacific bureau, said the fund has proposed spending 27 million US dollar in China from 2006-2010, which he said represents less than 3 percent of what the Chinese put into population programs.
– Our position is that our involvement in the various county programs in China has produced a lot of engagement, and the results are that people have increased choices, more information and they can determine the spacing of the births, he said.
– Targets and quotas (for births) have been eliminated in China as a result of the advocacy and engagement we have had with the Chinese, and these are all positive reasons why we should remain engaged in China, he said.
Ryan said the UNFPA board will not vote on the proposed China program until January and said the US hoped its concerns would lead to a halt in UN funding until coercion ends in the counties where UNFPA operates.
But several participants, speaking on condition of anonymity, said UNFPA got a lot of support at the meeting to continue the China program.
Kilde: The Push Journal
