Global Monitor

USAID produces gender “tool kits”:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has developed a gender “tool kit” like no other. It blatantly states that it wants to increase the "demand" for artificial contraception. 

As part of AIDS's “Gender in Economic and Social Systems” project funded by the agency's Office of Women in Development,- and just in time for the gender agenda at the Women's Conference in Beijing, AID produced 3,000 “Gender Analysis Tool Kits” in glossy purple-and-green cardboard cases. Production of the cases, nicely fitted with velcro fasteners and plastic handles, cost $175,400, plus hundreds of thousands more to conduct research for the “tool kit” in such gender sensitive places as Bolivia and Burkina Faso.

The “tool kit” provides methods to collect and analyze demographic data in foreign countries to determine the numbers of men and women in all sectors of the economy. One of the 10 booklet “tools” included in the kit declares that a major aim of the project is to get policy-makers to think in terms of “gender differences” rather than “sex differences? A slide show with the kit says “sex differences are “biological – unchangeable, universal” whereas “gender differences” are “cultural-changeable, variable.”

Although USAID spokespersons claimed the “tool kit” was not directly tied to the Beijing womens' conference, AID's Office of Women in Development (OWD), the kit's producer, has been involved for more than a year in conference preparations. U.S. government records indicate that the OWD has given as least $1.6 million in grants to the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations earmarked for the Beijing conference.

The slide show included with the kit targets changes in population-control programs to achieve a better male-female population balance. Citing Egypt as an example, the slides noted that “male dominance of household decisions” also corresponds with geographic “areas where fertility rates remain too high for sustainable development…” The slide goes on to say that this knowledge can be incorporated into “strategies to help increase the demand for family planning services,” noting that if husbands are the main fertility decision makers, they should be the primary targets of family planning promotion programs.” (“AID distributes 'tool kits' to build equality of sexes,” The Washington Times, 26 July pp 1, 14.)

AIDS may kill 2 million Africans:

The number of Africans infected with the AIDS virus is rising rapidly, and up to 2 million Africans could die of the disease within five years, according to a U.N. official.

Kingsley Amoako, executive secretary of the UN, Economic Commission for Africa, speaking at the opening session of a three-day AIDS conference in Addis Ababa, said “approximately 2 million persons could die as a result of AIDS by the year 2000” in the 15 hardest-hit African countries “if the present trend continues unabated.” (Washington Times, 3 October, p. A12.)

AIDS/HIV cases soar:

The Global Aids Policy Coalition, a division of the Harvard School of Public Health, recently provided some sobering statistics regarding the dimensions of the world-wide AIDS plague: As of l January 1994 the cumulative number of HIV infections had reached 22,200,000. Of that number, 11,287,000 were men, 8,737,000 were women and 2,175,000 were children.

By 1 January 1996, the Coalition predicted a 50 percent increase in the number of HIV infections to 33,300,000, of which l7,623,000 would be men, 12,637,000 women, and 3,070,000 children.

According to the AIDS Coalition “at least 90 percent of the new [HIV] infections [are] occurring in the developing world [and since] all the AIDS vaccines now in clinical trials are based on viruses taken from American and European patients [they] will not be effective in other regions such as Africa.”

Currently, approximately 70 percent of the world's HIV infections are in sub-Saharan Africa, while Southeast Asia is expected to experience the greatest growth in new cases, more than tripling by 1996. (“Confronting the AIDS vaccine challenge,” Technology Review, October 1994, pp. 22-29, chart at 26-2.)

Median age steadily increasing:

As the number of births in developed countries continues to decline and life expectancy (except for Russia) increases, the median age of the populations of many nations has steadily increased in recent years. Just released figures from the United Nations disclose the following median ages, which are akin to those found in retirement communities:

(POPULATION Newsletter, United Nations, June, Table 3, p. 21.)

A condom pyramid club?

Unfortunately for those toiling away at controlling the world's population or trying to combat the ravages of sexually transmitted diseases, the highly touted wonder cure-all, the lowly condom, often goes unused even when it is widely available.

In poor countries — where the need is supposedly the greatest — ignorance, scarcity and price work against condom use. In Africa it is reported that only 2 percent of married couples use them. In most poor countries, people are unwilling or unable to pay more than the price of a cigarette for a condom. Aid agencies can simply give them away, but then they are unlikely to be distributed widely since few middlemen are interested in a product that costs nothing.

One man's solution to the problem: pyramid selling.

Mr. Louis Gagnon, the “marketing director” (that means he peddles contraceptive pills and condoms) of the London-based International Family Health (IFH) organization) thinks the answer to greater condom distribution lies in “multi-level marketing.”

The concept usually relies on a chain of people buying something, then selling it to their friends who sell it on to their friends, and so on, Such schemes invariably break down as the ever expanding population needed to keep the pyramid intact quickly rises to huge numbers, sometimes even exceeding the population of the earth. (It is for this reason that such “marketing” plans are illegal throughout the United States.)

Nevertheless, Mr. Gagnon wishes to construct a condom-selling virtual pyramid which would be stored on a central computer. Under the scheme, individuals who join are given a card with an identification number, and that number, along with the number of their recruiter, is entered into the central computer.

To remain in the plan, each participant must buy 72 condoms a year. At the end of every month each person enrolled would receive a check based upon a secret formula developed by an IFH consultant. The key variable is how many people the individual brought into the scheme — not just those he introduced but those introduced by the ones he introduced, and so on, pyramid-fashion. People would be rewarded for recruiting other people to buy condoms, but only if they kept buying condoms themselves.

The first center is planned for Madras (India), the capital of the AIDS-ridden state of Tamil Nadu. Each person joining the plan must watch a video covering AIDS, family planning, and the correct use of a condom, and then pass a test on these subjects. The potential reward is tempting. Mr. Gagnon estimates that if one individual joins, and recruits six others, each of whom recruits six others… then after six months a check for 65,000 rupees (about $1,900 U.S.) will be earned by the original person. This in a country where the average income is just 2,000 rupees a month!

Although Mr. Gagnon concedes that no pyramid scheme can grow forever, he apparently believes that with 55 million people Tamil Nadu has the potential for a pyramid of truly “pharaonic proportions.”

Mr. Gagnon may know something about pushing condoms upon the world's people, but he seems to know little of basic math. Simple arithmetic shows that in order for that individual to earn his 65,000 rupees in just six months, he would have to be sitting atop a pyramid numbering 46,656 persons. In just 10 months time, if the pyramid remained intact, the number necessary to support the scheme would exceed the total population of the state, Similarly, if just 1,000 men joined, each recruiting 6 other men, and so forth, in just six months time the resulting pyramid (46,656,000) would require nearly the entire population of Tamil Nadu. Since presumably only adult males are buying the condoms, subtracting out the women and children would further constrict the population available for recruitment and shorten the time period during which one might enjoy the riches flowing from the proposed idiotic condom caper. (“Get rich in a jiffy,” The Economist, 7 October, p. 92.)

Where have all the little girls gone?

Although it is a well established fact that the boy-girl sex ratio at birth is 106:100, official 1992 vital statistics disclose that “119 boys are born for every 100 girls in China.” In India the ratio was “112 male births for every 100 females… [while] 114 boys in South Korea and 110 boys in Taiwan are born for every 100 girls.” Altogether, an estimated 100 million women are “missing” worldwide due to various sex-selection practices. Despite the banning of ultrasound machines for sea determination — in South Korea (1982), China (1993), and India (1994) — their use takes place clandestinely and sex-selection abortions continue unabated. The overwhelmingly majority of abortions performed throughout Asia involve female fetuses. (“A rush to rob the cradle — of girls,” The Christian Science Monitor, 2 August, pp. 1, 8.)