U.S. FUNDING FOR UN POPULATION FUND

Congress Daily reported January 24 that appropriators from both houses and both parties are warning President Bush he will pay a price if he decides not to spend $34 million they approved in the FY02 Foreign Operations bill for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). "I told them there would be consequences," said House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz. Earlier, on January 16, UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid met with the White House to press for release of the funds, which were suspended when conservatives claimed UNFPA was linked to China's abortion policies. The Associated Preas reported late January 16 that White House spokesman Sean McCormack said, "No decisions were made." The White House pause prompted NGOs   and members of Congress to write a letter supporting full funding for UNFPA. As of Jan. 25, the White House remains silent. Read in: Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post

[NOTE: See PLANetWIRE for the latest developments on Bush Administration Holds Up Family Planning Funds.]

SAVING WOMEN'S LIVES

The situation of Afghan women

Abortion up to the third month of pregnancy is legal again for Afghan women if their health is in danger, but after that they risk six months in jail if they turn to back-street abortionists. According to a January 15 story by Agence France Presse, all abortions were banned under the fundamentalist Islamic rule of the Taliban militia from 1996-2001. Gynecologist Maruf Same, who has spent 24 years in his profession, said that under previous Islamic governments, "There was family planning [and] contraception and we also gave advice about abortions. But that's no longer the case." Agence France Presse also reported January 16 that about six million Afghans have little or no health care, and at least one province only has two local doctors to cover its population, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO's findings reflect Kabul's current maternity crisis. "We have no more money, no more gasoline, I pay for paper from my own pocket. We don't have enough sheets or detergent. The water tank contains 4,000 litres instead of the necessary 20,000 and the ambulances don't work properly," said the hospital's administrative vice-director, Nozokmir Mirzada. "There is not enough room. We have to bury the placentas in the courtyard, which causes all sorts of hygiene concerns. And all that is just a fraction of our problems." In a January 6 story by The Denver Post, Grethe Ostern of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said, "If you want to rebuild Afghanistan, you have to start with improving the conditions for people. You begin with health care." Read in: The Denver Post

The New York Times reported January 9 that teachers say many of the younger Afghan girls have forgotten how to read and write, while the older ones find their memories of math and biology hazy. The Times reported that these girls, encouraged to study by their parents, were the vanguard in a country where female literacy is appallingly low: between 4 and 10 percent The male literacy rate is about 40 percent. The schools where they are meant to learn, meanwhile, are in disarray and often in ruin. United Nations officials estimate that 2,000 schools in the country were destroyed by more than 20 years of war. As one girl named Shafiqa put it: "Every day it's easier for me. Every day, I remember something new." The Associated Press reported January 25 that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited a newly reopened school in a show of support for girls' education in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Read in:  The New York Times.

Violence against Women

On January 6, The New York Times featured a story on how the latest developments on female genital mutilation in Kenya have affected one woman, Pacifica Kemunto, the matriarch of the family, who has herself cut the genitals of thousands of girls - so many over the course of a 30-year career that she long ago lost count. The Times reported, "Cutting a girl's genitals is now banned in Kenya. A presidential decree handed down last month has turned Mrs. Kemunto's profession into one of ill repute." The cultural practice still flourishes, though, especially among the Abagusii people who live in this rich agricultural region in the southwestern part of the country. Now it is performed under cover of night. Opponents have been fighting what they denounce as female genital mutilation for more than half a century. Slowly, they have made inroads, reducing a practice that is carried out to varying degrees in more than 20 counties across Africa. Read in: The New York Times

According to a study by "widows of the genocide" in Rwanda (AVEGA-AGAHOZO), two thirds of the many thousands of women who were raped during the genocidal violence in 1994 are infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Agence France Presse reported January 7 that the study found that 80 percent of the surviving women who had been raped during the mass killings were "traumatized by the sexual violence they suffered, and by the massacres of their families." Between 500,000 and 800,000 people are estimated to have been killed during the genocide, which was mainly carried out by extremists from the majority Hutu ethnic group on members of the minority Tutsi group and on moderate Hutus. Health officials in the small east African state estimate the number of HIV-positive Rwandans at 400,000, out of a total population of some 7.7 million.

TRAFFICKING CHILDREN AND WOMEN

The thriving trade in young humans illustrates the problems that the government of President Pervez Musharraf faces as he tries to turn Pakistan into a modern and tolerant nation. The Washington Times reported January 21 that "Children as young as 5 are auctioned off regularly in a warehouse here in Pakistan's lawless border regions. Most of them are impoverished Afghan refugees bound for lives of servitude or prostitution." "The selling of children is common among the poor in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Syed Mehmood Asghar, a program manager specializing in child abuse for Save the Children Sweden, based in Peshawar. "It has always been in the culture; the poor do not regard it as slavery." Read in: The Washington Times

For women in Southeast Asia, the situation is similar to that in Pakistan. The Associated Press reported January 22 that thousands of women and girls in China's poor south are falling victim to a growing slave trade with the more prosperous economies of Southeast Asia. Experts say Thailand's $20 billion-a-year sex industry is increasingly looking to China for cheap labor. Most of the Chinese women come from Yunnan and Guangxi, two of the poorest regions in the country's southwest. Most are members of ethnic minorities whose physical appearance and languages are similar to those of Southeast Asia. Some are kidnapped outright, but most leave poor villages by choice, drawn by the modern consumer lifestyle portrayed in Thai television and radio broadcasts that reach southern China. Read in: Associated Press

AIDS

Although Haiti's government has pressed ahead with attempts to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS that stigmatized Haitians in the 1980s, a continuing political crisis has strangled the flow of foreign aid destined for the front lines of the AIDS war. The Sun Sentinel reported January 24 that Public Health Minister Henri Claude Voltaire said, "We have a detailed plan for fighting AIDS from 2002 through 2006. It's a plan that was created by experts, not government ministers, although they are certainly involved." However, future plans to have been stymied by a political quagmire stemming from disputed parliamentary elections in May 2000 that led to the suspension of $500 million in foreign aid. The Ministry of Health estimates HIV infection rates in Haiti are highest in the poor rural northwest and northeast departments, with 13.9 percent and 6.25 percent of the population infected, respectively. Read in: The Sun Sentinel

In Ukraine, HIV is moving with a sad, slow force to people like Iren, 38, an economist and mother, who says she contracted it from her husband, a drug user who died of AIDS a year ago. The New York Times reported January 23 that more pregnant women are testing positive for HIV, and the disease is being passed more often to newborns. Health officials, both in the Ukrainian government and the United Nations, argue that now -- with the disease starting to bore into the general population -- is the moment to step in with a huge investment to fight further spread. The Times reported that the idea is to concentrate on the disease's reservoir, intravenous drug users, as well as young people who often turn to drugs because of few jobs in a generally bleak economy. Toward that end, the United Nations is working to raise between $30 million and $50 million for a broad three-year program against AIDS. Read in: The New York Times

The head of the Ethiopian Orthodox church has warned about the spread of AIDS, speaking in a sermon marking the country's holiest day. A January 22 story disseminated by Africa News reported that in an address to celebrate Ethiopian Epiphany, Patriarch Abune Paulos urged the community to provide support and show compassion to victims of the virus. He said that all Christians should support efforts being taken to prevent further spread of the virus. Ethiopia has the third highest number of people in the world living with HIV, resulting in a million orphaned children. Read in: Africa News

The Associated Press reported January 22 that nevirapine, an anti-AIDS drug that reduces the chances of HIV-positive pregnant mothers transmitting the virus to their children at birth, is to be made available in South Africa's most AIDS-stricken province, the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province. This decision is the latest development in the controversial national health department directive restricting the drug's use to a few pilot sites. Read in: Associated Press

OPINIONS AND EDITORIALS

"STOP the sanitary napkins!" wrote Marie Cocco in a January 23 commentary, lampooning the goal of the White House's decision to hold up funds for the United Nations Population Fund. "[UNFPA] rushes clean underwear, sanitary napkins and sterile delivery kits - soap, a string, a clean razor blade - to Afghan women in refugee camps," Cocco wrote. "These are, you may recall, the same women first lady Laura Bush said she was so deeply concerned about in November." Cocco challenged: "Offering the women crumpets in the White House is one thing. Standing up for them against the fringe of the anti-abortion lobby is, apparently, quite another." She concluded that "One day, Bush must decide. His choice will show whether he believes the world's women deserve substantive health care or a nice, soothing cup of tea." Read in: Newsday. Also see Glenda Holste's commentary in: Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN)

The 20 or so editorials that ran on U.S. funds for UNFPA echoed Cocco's sentiments, if less colorfully. The New York Times wrote on January 25, "It is up to President Bush to show that he will not deprive women around the world of necessary aid because of politics at home." The Los Angeles Times wrote January 16, "As he announced the gag rule [last January], Bush insisted that he still supported international family planning. Today he can prove it." Likewise, The Washington Post wrote January 15, "There would have to be a powerful reason to switch course and block funding for the agency now. [Rep. Chris] Smith's letter, which refers hysterically to the United Nations' giving 'standing ovations' to forced abortion in China, does not provide one." Read in: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post

The following editorials ran in support for U.S. funding for UN Population Fund:

January 24: New York Times: Abortion Politics

January 23: Peoria Journal Star (IL): Money for Family Planning

January 22: Philadelphia Inquirer: Family Planning on Hold

January 21: Akron Beacon Journal (OH): How Compassionate?

January 19: Newsday (NY): Family Way

January 18: Sacramento Bee (CA): Family Planning Myopia

January 16: Associated Press: White House Defers U.N. Recommendation

The Daily Times (Delaware): U.S. can't withhold family planning funds

Detroit Free Press: UN efforts to control growth deserve U.S. support

Los Angeles Times: Pregnancy Politics

New York Times: U.N. Officials Press White House To Free Family-Planning Money

Palm Beach Post: The $34 Million Question

San Francisco Chronicle: Support Family Planning

Seattle Times: Women's lives at risk for the sake of politics

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Family Planning at Risk

Trenton Times (NJ): At It Again

January 15: Houston Chronicle: Important to Keep International Family Planning Funds

Washington Post: A Test for Mr. Bush

On the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, The Times Union (Albany, NY) ran an op ed by Patricia McGeown, Executive Director of Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood. She wrote, "Whatever the reason, President Bush has, for the second year, decided to pledge his allegiance in January to the Republican Party's anti-abortion platform by attacking international family planning, using abortion as the pretext for his actions." McGeown urged readers "to pick up the phone or use your e-mail to let President Bush know he can't count on silence when he attacks women -- whether they are women in other nations or women in America. Tell him to honor the intent of Congress and fund the UNFPA. Then tell him to revoke the gag rule, and let America once more stand up for the right of free speech and the right of all women to reproductive choice." Read in: The Times Union

In a January 23 letter, Christina Zampas of the Center for the Reproductive Law and Policy noted that the Jan. 19 New York Times article, "Portugal Gives Abortionist an 8 1/2-Year Prison Term," illuminates the vulnerabilities that women face in a country where abortions are illegal. Even when abortion is a crime, desperate women will continue to seek the service illegally, paying exorbitant fees and risking criminal liability or their lives. "It is time for governments of the world to recognize that reproductive rights are fundamental human rights." Read in: The New York Times

On January 24, The Christian Science Monitor ran an op ed by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that suggested one way "to fix our strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, not break it" is "to encourage stability...not to make impractical efforts to export our political system. Rather, we should help Saudi Arabia implement economic reform and cut population growth in ways that will aid its people, allow them to modernize their society and economy, and prepare the way for political evolution." Read in: The Christian Science Monitor

In a January 23 op ed in The Washington Times, J.T. Young, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department, stated, "U.S. spending on foreign aid has not dramatically declined but has rather been a model of consistency over the past three decades." Young went on to say, "The fact that there hasn't been a dramatic drop in foreign aid spending over the past 30 years undercuts the thesis that this has caused an increase in world poverty. In fact, just the opposite has occurred: Since 1980, the number of people below the poverty line declined by about 200 million while the world's population grew by 1.6 billion." He concluded that, "Why people hate, let alone choose to do so, has bedeviled us well beyond the last few months or even the last few centuries. It is enough we should know that it was not the lack of aid that is to blame for September 11, much less is it the United States, but the terrorists themselves." Read in: The Washington Times

SPECIAL NOTE ON RECENT ACTIVITIES

King Lear tried making a big threat to get his way, but he had no backup plan and it didn't work. That tragic lesson didn't stop the American Life League from trying the idea again. It still didn't work.

Lear famously fumed that he would "do such things that the heavens would tremble" when he felt wronged by his daughters. He failed. It was only bluster.

Officials of the American Life League (ALL), a conservative anti-abortion group, fumed at a press conference last week that they would retaliate in a major way against the reproductive-rights group Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). They failed. It was only bluster too.

CFFC has been running national and international advertising pointing out that condoms save lives and that Catholic bishops who say otherwise are contributing to the deaths of millions of people from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. "We care," the ads say. "Do the bishops?"

ALL was furious. At its press conference, it promised rebuttal billboards on the Washington Metro and unveiled a newspaper ad that it said would crush CFFC in a flood of publicity. "Condom," the ad said, showing one, and "Con-dumber," over a photo of CFFC President Frances Kissling. The text accused her of "running abortion mills" in the past and of making "Catholic-bashing" and "hideous" charges.

"The [CFFC] ads imply there is scientific evidence supporting the theory that increased condom use reduces AIDS and other forms of sexually transmitted death and disease. Sadly, the opposite is true," the ALL ad said.

However, ALL failed to clear its plan and its text with Metro and with the newspaper concerned. The conservative Washington Times decided not to run the ad after CFFC's lawyers made clear that it was rife with errors and if published would constitute "actual malice and willful disregard for the truth" by the newspaper. Metro has not yet agreed to run ALL's ad either. So far, ALL's threats have come to nothing.

"I'm furious," ALL President Judie Brown fumed in a new release that criticized the Washington Times. This release, run on U.S. Newswire, claimed the Times had caved to "anti-Catholic bigots" in its decision not to publish, but the release failed to note that ALL itself had made three of the four changes demanded by Catholics for a Free Choice when it ran the ad on the ALL website. And this time, Judie Brown didn't make any more threats.

NEW PRO-LIFE ALLIANCE FORMED

Pro-life leaders announced the formation of the National Congress for the Protection of Human Life, a new alliance of organizations that bills itself as "100 percent, no exception pro-life." The Washington Times reported that Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus said, "If you vote for the U.N., you are for abortion. If you vote for Planned Parenthood, you are for abortion. If you vote for the Legal Services Corp. or the National Endowment for the Arts, you are for abortion." Mr. Phillips said participants in the Life Congress are trying to differentiate themselves from other pro-life groups, such as the National Right to Life Committee, which they believe are not firm enough in their opposition to abortion. The Life Congress, he said, objects to granting exceptions to allow abortions for women who get pregnant from rape or incest. Read in: The Washington Times

The above analysis was written by Elena M. H. Cabatu and Kathy Bonk at the Communications Consortium Media Center, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-8700.

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