News

OTTAWA, May 7, 2001 (LSN.ca) – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) issued a press release Tuesday indicating that the Government of Canada “gave 9.1 million Canadian dollars in 2000 as its regular contribution to the UNFPA.” The release notes that the Government, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has decided to grant an extra $900,000 for 2001 to procure contraceptives for developing countries. The massive donations to UNFPA is very disturbing to pro-life Canadians as it is well known that the UNFPA supports China’s draconian one-child policy.

In October 1998 the U.S. Congress, with strong bi-partisan support, refused any further funding to the UNFPA. The immediate cause of this action was the UNFPA’s decision to collaborate with China’s one-child-per-family policy. Representative David Obey (D-Michigan), who actually zeroed out UNFPA’s $25 million dollar annual grant from the Omnibus Budget Act, explained, “in my view they have a coercive abortion program in China.”

Amnesty International has repeatedly provided evidence of the torture and coercive methods used by China in enforcing their “family planning policy”. In its latest human rights report issued in February 2001, Amnesty reports that the tortures continue unabated despite the denials by Chinese officials to the United Nations. In addition to forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations, there have been numerous news accounts of confiscation of property, physical torture and beatings, and other severe treatment of women and men who refuse to “voluntarily” obtain abortions or become sterilized. The Amnesty report begins with the following chilling quote: “Zhou Jianxiong, a 30 year-old agricultural worker from Chunhua township in Hunan province, died under torture on 15 May 1998. Detained on 13 May, he was tortured by officials from the township birth control office to make him reveal the whereabouts of his wife, suspected of being pregnant without permission. Zhou was hung upside down, repeatedly whipped and beaten with wooden clubs, burned with cigarette butts, branded with soldering irons, and had his genitals ripped off.”

Despite the hard evidence that Amnesty and other organizations have presented, UNFPA denies the Chinese family planning program is coercive and has publicly praised it. Former UNFPA executive director, Nafis Sadik, who stepped down from her post in December, was quoted by China’s official news agency XINHUA on April, 11, 1991 saying, “China has every reason to feel proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its family planning policy and control of its population growth over the past 10 years. Now the country could offer its experiences and special experts to help other countries.”

The denials hold little credibility, especially in light of Chinese national and provincial laws demonstrating the coercive nature of the one-child policy. In April 1992, the National People’s Congress in China adopted a law that states in Article 42: “When a wife terminates gestation as required by the family planning programme, her husband may not apply for a divorce within six months after the operation….” In April 1988, the Fujian Province adopted Birth Control Regulations which stated that “[p]ersons not meeting legal age requirement shall be prohibited from marrying or bearing children,” and “nplanned births shall be prohibited.” In April 1990, the Henan Province adopted Rules and Regulations on Family Planning which states in Article 11: “Birth of the second child must be strictly controlled, and birth of the third child must be prohibited.”

See the Press release from UNFPA at:  https://www.unfpa.org/news/pressroom/2001/cida.htm

See the Amnesty report on China’s policy at:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/feb/010214.html#5

See also the Population Research Institute on China and UNFPA https://www.pop.org/briefings/china.html