Front Royal, VA, 09/14/07 – The population controllers at the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will have to pinch pennies for another
year. This week, for the sixth year in a row, President Bush has
invoked the Kemp-Kasten Amendment and withheld $34 million in U.S.
funding from the United Nations Population Fund. We at PRI applaud
this decision.
The groundwork for this decision was laid by PRI, which sent teams of
investigators to China, Peru, Vietnam, and Pakistan between 1998 and
2002 to look into U.N. Population Fund activities there. What they
found was that the UNFPA was deeply involved in programs of forced
abortion and coercive sterilization. We presented our evidence both to
the U.S. Congress and to two presidential administrations. The
evidence, which included video and audio testimony from victims of
these abuses, left no doubt that the UNFPA was violating the rights of
women, not to mention the Kemp-Kasten Amendment itself.
Among other things, PRI’s investigators found:
Chinese family planning officials told our investigators that there
was "no distinction" between the work that they were doing
in a given area of China and the UNFPA’s work there.
The UNFPA itself speaks of coercive sterilizations in Peru in an
internal report published in 2000, calling them "family planning
decisions made external to the person." (The UNFPA later denied
that this report existed.)
In 2000, the UNFPA smuggled abortion devices into Pakistan under the
guise of reproductive health kits labeled "for safe
delivery." Refugee women were pressured into accepting
abortions.
Over the years, the UNFPA has attempted over the years to cover-up
these abuses, even going so far as to issue dummy reports full of
misleading statements, but to no avail. Bush has been steadfast in
enforcing the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, and no U.S. population funds have
gone to the UNFPA since 2001. To date, the organization has lost a
total of $200 million in funding.
We at PRI would like to publicly thank President Bush for his
decision, which has subjected him to heavy criticism from the media
and from family-planning groups. We are proud that our work here at
PRI has helped to protect women around the world from anti-life
bullying by the UN population controllers.
