US accusations over birth policy baseless
China Daily  Updated: 2005-06-24 05:41

While the United Nations Population Fund and the Chinese authorities do all they can to help the country's young men and women make informed choices regarding family planning, the US administration of George W. Bush has repeated its opinion about what is going on in this country.

Kelly Ryan, an official with the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, indicated on Wednesday that her government would not resume funding for the UN agency known as UNFPA until it "stops giving the seal of approval" to aid programmes in China.

The Bush administration has stopped all funding for UNFPA for the last three years, saying its support for Chinese family planning programmes allows Beijing to implement policies of forced abortion.

Ryan went no further than that unsubstantiated accusation.

She could not because UNFPA has been doing the very opposite in China.

UNFPA vows to help women, men and young people plan their families and avoid unwanted pregnancies, undergo pregnancy and childbirth safely, avoid sexually transmitted infections, and combat violence against women.

That is exactly what its collaboration with China's population and public health authorities is all about.

Under a joint reproductive health and family planning programme, launched in 1998, UNFPA, through dozens of pilot projects in co-operation with different levels of governments in China, has made tremendous progress in both public awareness and government behaviour.

Planned parenthood is nothing particular to China.

But it has been given special attention here because of the acute pressure over-population has imposed on our resources and the environment.

Maintaining a balance between a country's need to exert control over the scale of its population and guaranteeing people's right to reproduction is a difficult job.

UNFPA has had a remarkable record with the collaboration of Chinese local governments.

In the pilot projects, local governments have gone to great lengths to help people of child-bearing age make informed choices regarding contraception.

Professional services and consultation have effectively reduced abortions as well as maternal and infant mortality in places covered by the UNFPA programme.

Besides, the agency is aggressively, and with remarkable success, popularizing condom use among sexually active groups, something which is considered essential to boosting awareness about HIV/AIDS.

There is every sign that the joint efforts of UNFPA and China's government allows people to make informed choices about family planning.

Even an earlier US Government report once said there was no evidence that UNFPA "knowingly supported or participated in ... coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization" in China.

Ryan's allegation is untrue and irresponsible because it stands the facts on their head.

Rather than criticism, UNFPA deserves applause for the historic changes it has initiated hand-in-hand with its Chinese partners.

(China Daily 06/24/2005 page4)

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