Support ICPD statement - please sign and disseminate
----------------------------------------------------
[From the Moderator: I you want to sign in, please don't press
the 'reply' button - it will go to AFRO-NETS - but reply to:
Johanne Sundby <johanne.sundby@samfunnsmed.uio.no> ]
The ICPD agreement is under attack. Please consider helping to sup-
port the agreement.
Below the statement in support of ICPD. For those who wish to sign
it, please reply no later than Monday 18 November, giving your name,
position, organization and country. Please change the subject line of
your email from that above (e.g. add your own name), because if more
than one arrives at the same time with the same subject line, the
system gets confused and makes some of them disappear. Furthermore,
please do NOT send the whole statement back attached to your reply,
as it may force me to spend several days just downloading your re-
sponses.
Please share and disseminate this statement and the call for signa-
tures as widely as possible. After next week, please continue to use
it at national and international level to lobby for continuing sup-
port for this work.
Johanne Sundby
mailto:johanne.sundby@samfunnsmed.uio.no
--
Open Letter
In Support of the International Conference on Population and Develop-
ment Programme of Action 1994
8 November 2002
The year 2004 will mark the halfway point in the 20-year Programme of
Action of the International Conference on Population and Development
(ICPD), which was adopted in 1994 by 179 countries after several
years of debate, discussion and negotiation. Since its adoption, ef-
forts have been ongoing worldwide to implement the Programme of Ac-
tion through national policies and programmes in support of family
planning, women�s reproductive health and development.
The ICPD Programme of Action is a groundbreaking agreement for im-
proving women�s health. It affirms the most basic of human rights:
the right of all people to decide for themselves how many children to
bear and when, and the right of all individuals to reproductive and
sexual health free from the fear of death and disease. It represents
a hard-won global consensus which involved delegations from every
government and representatives of hundreds of non-governmental and
other civil society organizations from all over the world, represent-
ing diverse social, religious and political points of view.
Today, we are facing a major threat to this global consensus, posed
by one of the most powerful countries in the world, whose national
and foreign policy has become actively anti-abortion, anti-sex educa-
tion, anti-reproductive health and increasingly restrictive of family
planning provision under George W Bush.
.
At the preparatory session for the 5th Asia-Pacific Population Con-
ference in Bangkok last month, the US delegation stated that the US
would not reaffirm its support for the ICPD Programme of Action and
that this position was not negotiable. In subsequent statements, the
Bush Administration called for many of the key concepts and all lan-
guage referring to reproductive health services, reproductive rights
and sexual health to be removed altogether. As regards abortion, it
wants to remove language about preventing the public health problem
of unsafe abortions, and instead �minimise the incidence of abor-
tion�. The unwillingness of the Bush Administration to support the
ICPD Programme of Action marks a fundamental shift in longstanding US
foreign assistance policy and conflicts sharply with oft-repeated US
support for women�s rights, family planning and related health pro-
grammes. Indeed, it is tantamount to a declaration of war on women�s
health. Yet the US was one of the first countries to provide both
technical and financial family planning aid, and US leadership in the
past has encouraged other nations to strengthen their support for
these critical programmes. It is tragic that the US now seeks to
break the consensus that was forged, with their support, in 1994.
We, the undersigned, representing a diverse group of women�s organi-
zations and other non-governmental organizations in every world re-
gion, wish to reaffirm our support for the 1994 ICPD Programme of Ac-
tion in its entirety.
To claim, as anti-abortion advocates do, that in the ICPD Programme
of Action reproductive health equals abortion, or that reproductive
health services only means abortion services, is a deliberate distor-
tion of the breadth of focus of that document, aimed at discrediting
it and undermining its legitimacy. We reject these claims as false.
We re-affirm our support for women�s right to control their fertility
without fear of dying. Deaths and morbidity from clandestine and dan-
gerous abortion practices remain a serious public health problem in
countries where abortion is illegal and unsafe. We call on govern-
ments to re-affirm their support for preventing all pregnancy-related
deaths, including by making abortions safe.
Furthermore, we reject attempts by any single government, even the
most powerful, to impose its policies on other nations through uni-
lateral demands or to bypass, ignore or violate democratic processes
in relation to international agreements and commitments.
We call on the United Nations and all its agencies, under whose aegis
the 1994 ICPD Programme of Action was drafted and agreed, especially
UNFPA and WHO, and international and national organizations and all
governments around the world who support the Programme of Action, to
re-affirm and stand firm in their support for all its goals wherever
the Programme of Action may come under threat through public state-
ments, active participation in regional and international meetings on
population and development, and through continued funding, policy and
programme support and technical assistance.
Lastly, we call on all world governments to re-affirm and redouble
their commitment of resources and to give increased policy and pro-
gramme priority to implementing the 1994 ICPD targets and goals in
their countries, as a necessary part of achieving the Millenium De-
velopment Goals.
Signed: (Name, Position, Organization, Country)
1. Marge Berer, Editor, Reproductive Health Matters, UK
2. Frances Kissling, President, Catholics for a Free Choice, USA
2. Amparo Claro, Latin American and Caribbean Women�s Health Network,
Chile (retired)
3. Jacqueline Pitanguy, Director, Cepia - Citizenship Studies Infor-
mation Action, Brazil
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org