Tuesday April 27, 2010
UN Still Blanketing Ravaged Haiti with Condoms
By James Tillman and Kathleen Gilbert
PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 27, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A document obtained by LifeSiteNews.com that carries the logos of the UNFPA, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and UNAIDS, calls on the camp managers in earthquake ravaged Haiti to be careful to ensure a supply of free condoms to the Haitians whose homes were destroyed by the January Earthquake.
One of the access points that the document directs displacement site managers to is “the PROMESS warehouse in Port au Prince.” LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) had reported shortly after the earthquake that, according to an inside source in Haiti, an enormous supply of condoms was taking up as much as 70% of the floor space in that warehouse and was preventing medical supplies from being unloaded, sorted, and distributed.
“All humanitarian actors should ensure that condoms are available to the affected populations,” state the recent instructions, which were attached in email sent to Haiti’s Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster dated April 23.
The instructions go on to calculate the needed number of condoms: the population is multiplied by the percentage of sexually active males (20% of population) who are expected to use condoms (26% of sexually active males) at a presumed rate of 20 times per month, with additional condoms accounted for wastage and loss.
UNFPA and UNAIDS, the document indicates, will also expend resources to organize training for all camp managers and community leaders “on correct and consistent usage and disposal of condoms,” as well as HIV awareness. “Condoms should be distributed with information and education and managers should liaise with community members on appropriate distribution points and methods,” the note continues. “Information leaflets and posters about condom use will also be provided.”
The document says that it is is applying “Sphere standards,” which are meant to help define “minimum standards in disaster response.” While ostensibly based on the belief that “those affected by disaster have a right to life with dignity and therefore a right to assistance,” the Sphere Handbook call for the “subsequent integration of comprehensive RH [reproductive health] services into primary health care” after a disaster. “Comprehensive reproductive health services” is a common euphemism that includes contraception and abortion.
The language of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) guidelines, which are also mentioned in the document, is similar. The IASC calls on agencies to distribute “male condoms and, where appropriate, female condoms free of charge in a wide range of places – clinics and health centres, bars, brothels, community centres and other settings where people, including young people, meet socially.” “Male and female condoms are essential items in emergency relief supplies,” according to IASC.
The UNFPA did not respond to LSN’s request to confirm the source of the document as of press time.
“This is what the UNFPA always does,” Stephen Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), told LifeSiteNews.com Tuesday afternoon, in reference to the condom distribution scheme.
Mosher pointed to a PRI investigation of Kosovo refugee camps during the Kosovo Conflict, which found the UNFPA’s population control priorities in full force. “The UNFPA Doctor there was more than happy to tell us that he was aborting as many babies conceived in the refugee camps as he could,” said Mosher, “because, after all, as he said, ‘they’re refugees’ – emphatically, ‘they can’t have babies.'”
If the UNFPA was genuinely concerned about stemming the tide of HIV/AIDS, he said, they would focus efforts on HIV testing, rather than promoting sexual licentiousness with faulty protection.
“The UNFPA sees all conceptions in war-torn or refugee-strewn or earthquake-affected countries as illegitimate. … These people are dependents, and they shouldn’t have children at all,” he said.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Exclusive: Shipments of Medical Aid to Haiti Delayed by Massive Condom Overload