Global Monitor

“UNFPA Warns of Fivefold Population Increase by 2150”

The United Nations Population Fund warns that the planet faces economic and ecological catastrophe — “the nightmare of the 1990s” — unless “urgent action is taken.”

UNFPA Executive Director Nafis Sadik, in crisis-ridden language, stated that, “Delay in implementing policies to reduce family size could make a difference of up to 4 billion people by 2050 — equal to the world’s 1975 population.”

The report claimed that 97% of the increase will take place in developing countries “with Africa accounting for 34%.” The population growth projected was a “likely” world population of 8.5 billion by 2025, 10 billion by 2050 and 11.6 billion by 2150. The projection depended upon “expectations that the average number of children per woman would drop from more than three today to levels where couples replaced themselves and no more.”

“Optimistically, world population would peak at 8.5 billion in 2050” if the developing countries restricted their fertility to the level of the developed countries.

The UNFPA press report, released on the eve of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development Conference (UNCED) in Brazil has the nasty ring of planned propaganda.1

Chilean Beach Entertainment

The Centre for Education and Prevention in Social Health (CEPSS) in Concepción devotes “special effort” to creating “educational channels” to reach residents of that city and its surrounding area.

Skits have been developed to be performed at beaches and discotheques. During the skit, two team-members start a loud conversation about ‘their relationship’ to attract the public’ attention. One member of the couple tries to convince the other to have sexual intercourse without condom protection. A third team member, dressed as an HIV virus begins chasing the couple around. When it seems as though the virus, will succeed in ‘killing’ them, a fourth team member, dressed as a condom, suddenly appears — one of the couple rushes to the condom — and the virus itself dies before the eyes of the audience.

In order to counteract “widespread attitudes that homosexual contacts are abnormal” the couples portrayed “are sometimes gay.” Because CEPSS wishes to overcome thinking patterns which emphasize sexual roles, the virus is sometimes portrayed as a female and other times as a male.2

USAID Population Control Politically Motivated

The Washington D.C.-based Population Crisis Committee (PCC) charges that the “Agency as a whole has no systematic plan to allocate resources to population programs on the basis of global demographic needs.” PCC maintains that political rationale as well as idiosyncratic and personality factors have a disproportionate influence on Agency policy. As an example of political allocation of population funds PCC cites the USAID allocation of $6.6 million for El Salvador — “a country of only five million people.”‘

PCC insists that “At a minimum AID should abandon its crusade against abortion activities by other donors… and resume support to FPIA (Family Planning International Assistance), IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) and UNFPA (United Nations Fund for Population Activities).3

Europeans Adopt Population Agenda

Following the lead of Dr. Fred Sai, IPPF president, and Nafis Sadik, UNFPA executive director, European Parliamentarians adopted a “European Agenda for Action on World Population.”

The European Parliamentarians (EP), a branch of the Global Parliamentarians who operate out of the United Nations Social and Economic Council, determined to “persuade their governments substantially to increase bilateral and multilateral development assistance” through funding of UNFPA, IPPF and associated nongovernmentals (NGOs). A rationale for the action was provided by “cooked” maternal mortality figures of 500,000 deaths in developing nations (see PRI Review, “Safe Motherhood Initiative,” vol. 2, no 3, May/June 1992).

The EP document called on members of the European Parliament in Brussels to ensure that allocations for population projects within the European Community Development Budget are fully taken up and increased. It further urged the presidency of the European Council “to put population issues on the Development Council agenda.”

The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, regional development banks, U.N. agencies and NGOs should “review” their population programs with a “new sense of innovation and flexibility.” The legislators are also calling for the establishment of a Global Commission on Population to “take evidence from national and international experts and Parliamentarians” in order to provide a foundation for programmatic policies at the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development.4

Oh No, Oh Yes, Oh — What?

Robin Chandler Duke, the national president of the Population Crisis Committee, denies that she is advocating abortion. Rather she is…

merely saying that if a woman wishes to terminate a pregnancy ‘within the common sense time frame’ she should be able to go to a clinic for the procedure…[particularly if she] does not want a child…nor [is] interested in raising a child .…”5

Does Iran Promote Birth Control?

The Washington Post reports that the Iranian government has changed its policy against all forms of birth control and is now “bucking its people’s traditional bias favoring large families” and its “clergymen’s religious beliefs.” The article claims that the government is now “openly promoting family planning with every available resource: television, volunteers, sermons, free vasectomies and tubal ligations .…”

A “principal architect” of Iran’s population control program is Hossein Malek-Afzali, a physician who was trained at the University of California at Los Angeles. The government offers free contraceptives, including pills, condoms, IUDs and the contraceptive patch. It has also paid for 200,000 tubal ligations and 7,500 vasectomies.6

High Maternal Mortality Caused by Female Circumcision

The International Women’s Health Network (IWHN) reports that the maternal mortality statistics published by the World Health Organization (WHO) “can be exactly correlated with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The highest maternal mortality is in the countries where FGM is widely practiced — indeed maternal mortality is still increasing.

“Why, one can but wonder, is WHO deliberately suppressing these facts: this must be challenged. WHO should not withhold this essential health information about women.

“We urge you to write to the WHO Director General, Dr. H. Nakajima, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland, and demand that WHO correlate maternal mortality figures in Africa with the figures on FGM which they have but so far refuse to publish .…”7

WHO Chides the World

“Of the 49 million people who die each year, 75 percent are victims of the population squeeze and the environmental degradation that accompanies it,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Commission on Environment and Development.

“Environmental degradation and threats to health are inextricably linked through population growth, excessive consumption, and the effects of poverty,” according to the WHO report. WHO urges governments and international agencies to “give higher priority to reducing population growth, overconsumption, and the generation of waste products; encourage community-based initiatives .…”8

Ecological Debt Owed to Third World

“Industrialized countries owe an ‘Ecological Debt’ to the Third World because of their responsibility for much of the environmental degradation plaguing the earth,” according to the InterAmerican Parliamentary group on Population and Development.

“The statement added that the ‘ecological debt’ must be considered in dealing with Third World countries’ massive external debt. It recommended that developed countries grant preferential treatment to products from the Amazonian countries, which in turn must allocate part of the earnings from such treatment to environmental protection.”9

The China Model

“The word has gone down from the central government in China that all provinces and regions must intensify grassroots family planning work.

“In south-west Guangxi, one of the black sheep regions which failed to meet its birth control target for 1991, each official…now has a ‘baby contract.’ Any births over the allowance trigger a cut in salary.”

According to one official, “The key lies in successful propaganda, persuading farmers that large families are damaging to their own and the national interest. But if a couple resist the propaganda and defy the law, they will be fined 400–500 yuan.”

However, a farmer in a village near Beijing said the fines were closer to 10,000 — 20,000 yuan. He was quoted as saying, “After your second child, they’ll slap a fine on and then they’ll insist your wife has the operation to tie the tubes. She’ll never be able to have a third one after that.”10

Colombia — “I Am Planned”

According to the Population Crisis Committee (PCC), “the phrase estoy planificada has become part of the vocabulary in Colombia.” PCC recently issued a report which cited Colombia, India, Thailand, Morocco and Kenya for “making great strides ‘toward universal access to family planning and population stabilization’ and ‘debunking the myths that population growth is an intractable problem.’”

A crucial element in this perceived ‘success story’ has been PROFAMILIA, an International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliate, which has developed a network of 48 clinics. PROFAMILIA is a partnership of private and government-sponsored efforts, making family-planning advice and means freely available throughout the country, even in grocery stores and supermarkets.”11