By Tom McFeely
THE HAGUE, Feb.12
A young law student working as a correspondent for an Islamic News Service was thrown
to the ground, pinned down, handcuffed and had his neck throttled by four United Nations
security guards at the Hague Forum, a five-day UN-sponsored conference that ended here
today.
“I cried for help and for them to stop in the name of God. They did not. When Dutch
police arrived I was released. I filed a complaint with the police. This is not the way
an organization that claims to uphold human rights should treat a journalist whose only
crime was to ask questions and speak the truth” said Bachar Jamali, the student who was
the victim of the UN security guard assault.
Jamali’s ” only crime ” included interviewing Muslim youth delegates to the Forum,
during the course of which the young correspondent found out that the documents being
prepared as part of the conference Youth Forum’s “Suggestions for Further Action”
contained references to “comprehensive sexual education in schools [which] should be made
mandatory at all levels. This should cover sexual pleasure, confidence and freedom of
sexual expression and orientation.”
Mr. Jamali had asked youth delegates about this type of language, which “is offensive to
Islamic culture,” the student said in a formal letter of complaint to UN Secretary General
Koffi Annan dated Feb.10, a day after he was taken into a back room and beaten by the
UN guards.
In addition to this physical assault on a journalist, procedural abuses, affronts to
national sovereignty and due process, and an unremitting deluge of pro-abortion and
anti-family propaganda were the hallmarks of the conference, which has been organized by
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is part of the so-called “Cairo+5 process”
that is reviewing the ” implementation” of the 1994 International Conference on
Population and Development in Cairo.
In reality, the meeting here in The Hague has been manipulated throughout by UNFPA and
its allies among population-control and radical-feminist non-governmental organizations
(NGOs). Before the main session with national delegations began on Monday, three
preliminary meetingsÐa Forum of Parliamentarians, an NGO Forum and a Youth ForumÐtook
place. Attendance at each was closely controlled by the dominant UNFPA-NGO coalition.
For instance, only four pro-life/family NGOs were permitted to attend the NGO Forum,
out of 620 participants. In contrast, scores of affiliates of International Planned
Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and other leading pro-abortion groups were granted
accreditation. On February 6, conference organizer Marianne Haslegrave admitted to two
pro-life NGO representatives that a quota had been placed on the number of pro-life NGOs
permitted to attend.
The panel presentations during the NGO Forum, which were supposed to be the venue through
which NGO representatives in The Hague could dialogue openly about the key Cairo+5
issues, were similarly exclusionary towards viewpoints contrary to those favoured by
the UNFPA and its pro-population-control NGOs allies. Arguments in favour of universal
access to abortion and artificial contraception, including to minor children without
parental consent or supervision, were repeatedly made by the panelists, with no
opportunity afforded to pro-family spokesmen to offer rebuttals. Similarly, the NGO
panels gave abundant representation to speakers like Frances Kissling, head of the
pro-abortion group Catholics For a Free Choice, to attack the foundational teachings
of orthodox monotheistic religions, particularly those of the Catholic Church. Again,
defenders of those religious teachings were denied a place on the panels from which
to reply.
This failure to reflect the full range of civil society opinions, or even of a
substantial sampling of opinion, was acknowledged on Sunday afternoon by NGO panel
speaker Rachel Kyte, a representative of the IUCN. In the years since the 1994 Cairo
Conference on Population and Development, Ms. Kyte acknowledged, “we seem to be
talking to ourselves in ever decreasing circles.”
THE DRIVE FOR ABORTION ON DEMAND
Predictably, given the stacked deck of attendees, the NGO Forum was a hotbed of
pro-abortion advocacy. This occurred despite the fact that several paragraphs of the
1994 Cairo Programme of ActionÐwhich is supposed to be the sole focus of the Cairo+5
review processÐspecifically state that abortion must not be included in family
planning programs, should be discouraged generally by governments, and is subject
solely tosovereign national jurisdiction rather than to international conference
documents. This restriction against abortion promotion in the review process is
further augmented by the fact that the UN General Assembly resolution that authorizes
the entire Cairo+5 process specifically instructed that the process was merely a
review of its implementation and must not renegotiate the contents of the Programme
of Action.
Most of the NGO participants in the Cairo+5 process are showing complete disrespect
for these guidelines on abortion. Thousands of pamphlets, brochures, books and
other material advocating universal, on-demand access to abortion and attacking
the national laws of governments that prohibit or restrict abortion, are being
distributed by pro-abortion NGOs at The Hague conference site, and virtually every
panel at the NGO Forum featured at least one commentary openly pushing for on-demand
access to abortion as an integral part of “reproductive health.”
Representatives of three of the four pro-life/family NGOs in attendanceÐthe Catholic
Family and Human Rights Institute, the Couple-to-Couple League, and International
Right to LifeÐmade representations from the floor on Sunday morning, expressing
points of view opposing the pro- abortion orthodoxy that had been allowed to
dominate discussions. Conference officials encouraged the representatives to
express their points of view, and guaranteed that they would be reflected in the
final NGO/Youth Forum report, which was released on Monday afternoon.
That promise was not honoured. No reflection of the three groups’ comments can be
found in the NGO report, which instead openly promotes increased access to abortion.
Throughout most of Africa and Latin America, the report complains on page 14, “most
restrictive laws on abortion have not been changed.” In the same paragraph, it
laments that in many such countries, “some private doctors do not challenge the
status quo” by challenging local abortion laws.
The promotion of abortion is equally blatant in the debates during The Hague Forum
itself, in which government delegations participated. Numerous references urging
governments to repeal “restrictive” or punitive” laws were found in the draft Review
of Progress document.Ê For example, Para. 249 states, “Governments should enact and
implement legislation and policies required to meet the commitments made in Cairo..
.such as removing restrictive laws.” Meanwhile, no references could found anywhere
in the draft document to the Chapeau of the Cairo Programme of Action, which
guarantees national sovereignty with regard to all population- related policies and
and programs, or to the Programme of Action’s specific prohibitions against the
promotion of abortion.
By Thursday afternoon, however, it had become evident that the efforts of the small
contingent of pro-life lobbyists were having an effect despite the hostility that was
openly displayed toward their viewpoints. On Wednesday afternoon, Catholic Family and
Human Rights Institute representative Jeanne Head addressed the main negotiating
committee to call on the Review of Progress’ drafters to respect the protective
language of the Programme of Action on abortion. Her presentation was greeted with
boos and hisses from pro-abortion NGO representatives. The next day, though,
Nicholaas Biegman of Holland, the president of The Hague Forum, told reporters at an
afternoon press conference that some inclusion of the Cairo abortion language was now
likely.
NO RECOGNITION OF FAMILY OR PARENTS
There was little or no reference to the family unit in the Background Paper and no
recommendations that governments utilize resources and create structures to strengthen
and support the family unit. Similarly, there was no reference to parental rights and
responsibilities and no recommendation that governments initiate policies and programs
or enact legislation that supports and encourages parents to accept their primary role
to educate their children.
This failure to recognize families and parents seemed a curious departure from the
Cairo Programme of Action, which specifically acknowledges the rights and
responsibilities ofÊ parents with regard to their children’s education in sexual
matters. Instead, the draft Review of Progress promoted autonomous reproductive and
sexual “rights” for minor children as young as ten, and access for such children to”reproductive health services”Ðcode for abortion-on-demand and artificial
contraceptionÐwithout any reference to parental consent. Meanwhile, no mention is made
of abstinence as a responsible and healthy sexual behaviour, even though paragraph
7.44 of the Cairo Programme of Action specifically mentions “voluntary abstinence.”
in this context.
But in fact, given the composition of the national delegations and the prevailing
biases of UNFPA and other key UN agencies, the exclusion of references to family and
parental rights and responsibilities is no puzzle. On Thursday morning, three Nordic
delegatesÐall of them representing pro-abortion NGOsÐgave a presentation on youth”reproductive and sexual health.” The first speaker, Katarina Lindahl of the Swedish
Association for Sex Education, declared that young people have the “right” to have
sex and enjoy sexual pleasure. Later, she asserted flatly that “post-abortion care
and safe abortion is an important right for young girls to have access to,” and
argued that youth sexuality “is not something that parents, or adult men, or that
religions should have the final sayÐit’s the right of young people to have themselves.”
Asked about the lower age limit of the girls who should have access on-demand abortion,
without any parental oversight, Lindahl replied there was no lower limit with: “It
depends on when they get pregnant.” Finnish delegate Dan Aper, a gynecologist and the
director of a family planning clinic, concurred that while “very young” girls might be”encouraged” to seek parental help prior to abortions, there should be no restrictions.“Confidentiality of the services is very critical,” he added.
Danish delegate Hanne Risor, president of the Danish Family Planning Association,
stressed the importance of “overcoming” the resistance of teachers and parents to sex
education programs. “It’s the teachers and the parents who are afraid in different
ways,” Risor complained, singling out parents as “the main obstacles.” For his part,
Aper suggested that sexual education programs should start in kindergarten.
YOUTH ARE THE TARGET
Indeed, targeting youth for abortion, contraception and graphic sexual education
programs was a central focus throughout The Hague Forum’s deliberations. Many of the
youth representatives were drawn from pro-abortion NGOs. Canada’s delegate, for
instance, was Erin McGinn, who works out of the Ottawa office of Planned Parenthood
Federation of Canada, the Canadian affiliate of International Planned Parenthood
Federation (IPPF), the world’s largest abortion provider. However, the efforts of
UNFPA to control the Youth Forum debates backfired, courtesy in good measure to the
presence of Bachar Jamali, a young Syrian law student who was covering the conference
for an Arabic magazine. On Sunday, Jamali discovered that most of the Muslim youth
representatives had no understanding of the meaning of the term “sexual orientation,”
which is UN code for recognizing homosexual rights. He also alerted the Muslim youth,
and conservative representatives from Catholic developing nations, about the
pro-abortion drive underway in the Youth Forum discussions.
Efforts by the Youth Forum’s adult organizers and its handpicked pro-abortion
participants () only stiffened the resistance of the conservative youth. On Tuesday,
UNFPA officials ordered security staff to handcuff and arrest Jamali, who was stripped
of his journalistic credentials, ejected from the conference site, and denied entry
for the remainder of meeting on the grounds he was “disrupting” the Youth Forum,
despite the fact Dutch police refused to lay any criminal charges against him.
Even in his absence, the Muslim and Catholic youth held firm against the inclusion of
abortion and “sexual orientation” issues, forcing votes on both issues. The
pro-abortion and pro- homosexual forces narrowly wonboth votes, but fully 44% of the
youth delegates voted against inclusion of either phrase within the document. But
rather than follow ordinary UN procedures,Ê which hold that issues that are obviously
far from “consensus” should be dropped altogether from final conference documents, the
Youth Forum organizers insisted on the inclusion of the offending language. Those
opposed, meanwhile, were allowed to enter “reservations” expressing their opposition.
Queried at a press conference on Friday afternoon as to why these normal UN procedures
had been abandoned, Canada’s McGinn replied that all youth delegates had agreed on
this solution. An adult organizer added that while it was true that such issues are
“normally dropped if the difference is that big,” it was decided that in this case the
entry of reservations instead would be just as “transparent.”
NATIONAL DELEGATES HAVE LITTLE INPUT HERE
In reality, it would be difficult to conceive of a process with less “transparency”
than the entire Cairo+5 review process. The Hague Forum, for example, was constantly
promoted by UNFPA officials as a process whereby the views of all “actors” in “civil
society” would be heard. This claim was comprehensively belied by the overwhelming
preponderance of pro-abortion NGOs, and the deliberate suppression of conservative
NGO participation. UNFPA officials were also less than anxious to reveal the rooted
bias of NGO representation on national delegations, most of which contained at least
one pro-abortion NGO representative. IPPF was particularly favoured, with dozens of
representatives of IPPF affiliates in attendance. The U.S. delegation alone contained
no less than four pro-abortion NGOs, including Gloria Feldt, president of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America.
Further distorting The Hague’s debates were the bizarre procedures used for
“negotiating.”Ê Upon their arrival, many delegates erroneously believed that the
content of the Review of Progress would be debated in its entirety, and be subject
to the normal UN requirement that delegate “consensus” be achieved on all language
retained in the final version of the document. In fact, the comments from delegates
served merely as “inputs” into the drafting process, which was controlled by Hague
Forum president Biegman and by UNFPA officials. After learning of the process,
bewildered German delegates told a German journalist on Monday that they had no idea
why they had bothered to come.
By Thursday afternoon, after other national delegates discovered that Biegman and
other conference organizers were not allowing a comprehensive debate but instead
would simply rewrite the final conference document as they pleased, Biegman was
forced to admit at a press conference that the final report would not be a
“consensus” of national delegates and therefore would have no binding authority over
the future components of the Cairo+5 review process.
Away from the inquisitive eyes and ears of reporters, Biegman was delivering a very
different message to restive delegates. At a Thursday evening session of the drafting
committee, an Austrian delegate speaking on behalf of the European Union, requested
that a short “chapeau” be placed at the head of the document confirming that it was
a non-negotiated and non-binding document. Biegman initially countered that such
language “sounded very negative, but when alternative language carrying a similar
meaning was suggested, Biegman claimed any such inclusions would “diminish all the
hard work you have put into all this week.” Indeed, he lamented, if the European
Union won the day,Ê then “we may as well tear this document up and throw it in the
rubbish bin”.
Other delegates attending the drafting committee session were overwhelmingly
supportive of Austria, but Biegman was unmoved. Cutting off further debate, he
snapped that it was indeed a true negotiationГyou have been negotiating all week”Ðand would not be designated as non- binding. We want to be able to use it, otherwise
all your hard work is for nothing,” he explained.
The procedural confusion only worsened on Friday. In the morning, Anwarul Karim
Chowdhury of Bangladesh, who had served throughout the week as chairman of the main
“negotiating” committee where national delegates and NGO spokesman had been allowed
to discuss the draft Review of Progress, told a journalist that the just-released”Draft Report” of “The Hague International Forum” was in fact the final conference
document. If that was true, puzzled reporters asked at a noon press briefing, then
why was the document called a “draft,” and why had Biegman one day earlier said that
changes would continue to be made to it next week after all the national delegates
had gone home? UNFPA spokesman Corrie Shanahan promptly contradicted Chowdhury by
confirming that further substantive changes would be made.
UNFPA executive director Dr. Nafis Sadik only deepened the mystery at her closing
press conference. After being prodded by reporters into publicly acknowledging that
the “Draft Report” was neither a negotiated document nor in any way binding on
nationsÐthereby contracting Biegman’s comments behind closed doors to delegates
the previous eveningÐshe maintained that no further changes would be made to the
draftÐthereby contradicting Shanahan’s remarks of only an hour earlier.
Who is telling the truth won’t be known until at least February 22, when the final
conference document is supposed to unveiled as part of the “Report of the
Secretary-General.” That report, Sadik said, will be presented as aÊ“background”
document to next month’s annual session of the Commission on Population and
Development in New York. (The name “Report of the Secretary- General” is yet more
United Nations misinformationÐUNFPA officials, not UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan,
are charged with preparing the report.) The CPD conference document, unlike The Hague
Conference’s “Draft Report,” is supposed to be a consensus document negotiated in its
entirety by national delegations during the last week of March. ItÊ will then be
forwarded to a UN General Assembly’s Special Session on the Cairo+5 review process,
to be held June 30-July 2 in New York.
NO COMPROMISE FROM ANTI-LIFE, ANTI-FAMILY UNFPA
The “Draft Review” document circulated today by UNFPA takes no account whatsoever of
the arguments made by national delegates and pro-life/family NGOs in favour of
respecting national sovereignty over abortion policy, and for affirmations of the
role of parents. As late as his Thursday press conference, Biegman suggested that the
Cairo Programme of Action language restricting the promotion of abortion and affirming
national authority in this area would “likely” be added to the final conference
document. In fact, no such references were inserted.
With respect to parents, the sole acknowledgment of their existence in today Draft
Report was a recommendation that they “should be educated about, and involved in,
providing information to adolescents to fulfil their rights and responsibilities in
the sexual and reproductive health education of young people.” As for the nature of
those sexual and reproductive “rights,” the Draft Report specifies that, “Sexual and
reproductive health programmes for adolescents should encompass not only sex
education and provision of contraceptives but also basic health care, STD prevention
and treatment, effective referral services and counseling that addresses sexuality,
builds self-esteem, promotes gender equality, and ensures privacy and confidentiality.” The official UN working definition of “adolescent,” as set forth jointly by UNFPA,
UNICEF and the World Health Organization, is the age group 10-19.
Tom McFeely is a Canadian freelance journalist reporting from The Hague for Human Life
International Canada.