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UN to Award Global PR Firm for Indian Population Control Condom Campaign

Program was joint project of USAID and health ministry of Indian government

By Hilary White

NEW DELHI, August 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United Nations has offered its "Grand Award" for achievement in public relations to a US-funded campaign to boost condom sales in India. The campaign, called "Condom Bindaas Bol" (Say Condom Freely), was a joint project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the health ministry of the Indian government.

The campaign was meant to convince Indians that the word "condom" was not a "delicate" one and that condoms are for "everyone" not just those with HIV/AIDS. The campaign was launched in eight northern Indian states that make up 40 per cent of India's population: Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Such so-called "social marketing" schemes, funded by the government and international NGO's, are a boon to condom manufacturers that directly benefit from their tax-funded advertising. One such company, Hindustan Latex Limited, owned by the federal government, is a large manufacturing company based in Kerala and a major player in India's population control movement.

Hindustan Latex produces both condoms and Ormeloxifene, a drug approved only in India and marketed as a "non-hormonal weekly oral contraceptive" whose main action is to prevent implantation of the already conceived embryo. In 1992 the Hindustan Latex company established the non-profit Family Planning Promotion Trust to promote the government's population control policies.
 
The campaign being granted the award was designed by the New Delhi branch of Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm that does pro bono work in "community outreach programs" around the world. Weber Shandwick boasts many Fortune 500 companies as clients and was chosen to advise UK Prime Minister Tony Blair during the 1997 and 2001 general elections.

Last year, Indian family activist in Kerala, Sunny Kattukaran, the leader of the Indian pro-life group, Trust God (Pro-Life) Ministry, told LifeSiteNews.com editor John Henry Westen that moneyed interests and western-based population control groups were creating an environment of coercion among Indian families to avoid children.

Kattukaran explained, "The Americans, the UN and other funding agents, when they release some funds as loans they ask our statistics on birth control, and insist on family planning criteria, only then do they pump money."

"Our politicians," he says, "take that money and promise" to carry out the population control agenda. Kattukaran said that the population problem in Kerala is not too many, but too few children and an ageing population. The birthrate is already below replacement among most of the families in this state that has the highest education level in India. 

The United Nations Grand Award will be presented in November, in London, as part of the annual awards ceremony of the International Public Relations Association.

See previous LifeSiteNews series on Kerala's birth dearth crisis:

Christians in India facing Major Decline Because of Low Birthrate
No alternative media or education programs, organizations to counter abortion, de-population propaganda
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/060612a.html

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