UN side event on reducing under 5-child mortality ignores the elephant in the room

A side event organized jointly by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Permanent Mission of Ireland launched a new technical guidance document on ‘the application of a human rights based approach to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity of children under 5’. The technical guidance is very timely in respect of babies between birth and age 5 however it ignores the elephant in the room, the approximately 45 million unborn babies aborted before birth every year.

Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 called for the reduction of child mortality by 2/3 from the 1990 level. Figures presented at the side event say that the rate has halved from 90 deaths per 1000 live births to 46 in 2013, most of which (95%) occurs in Africa and Asia. The global rate of decrease is accelerating it was 1.2% in 1994-5 and has now reached 4%. Clearly there is still much to do.

The question that must be asked is why is the largest and most vulnerable group of children the approximately 45 million unborn babies who are slaughtered every year, ignored when preventable child mortality is under discussion?  Surely this is contrary to the provisions of the CRC and in point of fact represents a double standard. The unborn clearly come into the category of being under 5 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in its preamble says:

“The child by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”.

The real issues are usually avoided and the standard UN argument in support of ignoring the child before birth is that the CRC only applies from birth. This argument however does not stand up when the travaux preparatoire (the history of the negotiations) is considered. Poland being a communist country at the time of the negotiations proposed that the Convention would apply only from birth. This was rejected and the ensuing document is not limited to born children only.

It should also be noted that the personhood of the child before birth is implied in the CRC by referring to 'the child' before as well as after birth.

This resolution is an update of last years one on the same issue, which called for the preparation of technical guidance which was announced today.

The report tells us that most child mortality is due to a small number of diseases and conditions 43% occur among newborn babies from birth to 28 days and are mainly due to pre-term birth complications, birth asphyxia and trauma, and sepsis. After the first 28 days, until age of 5 years, the majority of deaths are attributable to infectious diseases such as pneumonia (22%), diarrhoeal diseases (15%), malaria (12%) and HIV/AIDS (3%).  The vast majority of conditions and diseases that lead to death among children under 5 years of age are preventable and treatable through cost-effective interventions.

Controversy at 58th Commission on the Status of Women brings the United Nations into disrepute

This year’s annual Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58), held during the past two weeks at the UN Headquarters in New York ended in controversy when the 45-member Commission adopted an outcome document entitled “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls”. These negotiations are supposed to be based on consensus and the outcome document or agreed conclusions is meant to represent just that, genuine agreement.

Following two weeks of negotiations that had become deadlocked, the Chair produced a new text just before midnight on Friday, which still contained some of the more controversial paragraphs on which there was no agreement. Given the lateness of the hour, Member States were given less than a minute to voice any last minute objections before the Chair adopted the 24 page text in its entirety.  This type of farce is precisely what brings the UN into disrepute.

Twenty - two, (22) Member States, some of which represented large groups of member states, made reservations to the text, the implication being that around half the countries in the world were unhappy and do not support the outcome. The rich countries lamented the fact that the document included a reference to " the family " as they wanted a reference to "various forms of the family". They were also upset that there was no reference to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)

The controversial document includes references to “comprehensive evidence-based education for human sexuality”, so called emergency contraception and “safe abortion” where such services are permitted by national law. It also includes “reproductive health care services, commodities, information and education.”

Abortifacients and abortion are not health care, and the fact that they are included in the document says more about ideology than any genuine effort to reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity.

The term “reproductive rights” which appears in three places has been qualified by referencing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which is intended to protect countries’ sovereign rights to determine their own national laws on reproductive health.

Needless to say UNFPA, The pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund, welcomed the so called agreement claiming that it clearly reaffirms the international community’s commitments to gender equality and the empowerment and human rights of women and girls and the Commission’s reaffirmation of the importance of the ICPD Programme of Action.

The Commission also negotiated a resolution on “Women, the girl child, and HIV/AIDS.” Presented by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Malawi, to bring to the attention of the international community the challenges of realizing MDG 6 on HIV/AIDS.

The draft resolution on HIV/AIDS as proposed supported the idea of fidelity and delay of sexual debut. The Netherlands during the debate in the plenary presented controversial oral amendments, which included deletion of the term “early sexual debut” and adding “comprehensive evidence-based education for human sexuality,” The amendments also referenced controversial references from outcome documents of regional conferences organized by pro-abortion organizations

 The amendments proposed by the Netherlands were supported by Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Costa Rica, Norway, Australia, Iceland, and Paraguay.

Because of the fact that resolution had been arbitrarily changed the African Member States withdrew co-sponsorship of the resolution, followed by Russia and China. Malawi then called for the withdrawal of its sponsorship.

Despite the fact that there were no sponsors remaining the amended resolution was brought to a vote. The results of the vote were 22 in favor and 16 abstentions, while 7 did not vote.

The African Member States expressed disbelief and disappointment at the fact that the resolution they had proposed had been hijacked, and it was significant that in the final analysis none of them accepted the amended resolution as it ran counter to their experience in how best to tackle HIV/AIDS.

UN OPEN WORKING GROUP ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The final Open Working Group meeting which took place at the UN in New York during the first week of February was attended by my Colleague Vincenzina Santoro, Main United Nations Representative for the American Family Association of New York, who reports that the session covered a panoply of topics including: oceans, seas, forests, biodiversity, equality (social and gender), women’s empowerment, conflict prevention, peace, peace-building, rule of law, and much more. In other words: everything for everyone everywhere.

Vincenzina continues,

The MDG process took place behind closed doors and rubber stamped at the General Assembly in 2000. This has been heavily criticized and so now the entire global community has been asked to participate in the formulation of the SDGs. After all the OWG meetings and other fora that have been held, the two co-chairmen of the OWG process, the Ambassadors of Hungary and Kenya (who in my view are rather exceptional for UN ambassadors) will have to cull hours and hours of utterances by delegates, inter-governmental organizations, UN agencies, and civil society and produce a final report sometime in the near future.

Among the voices that were heard was the Executive Director of UN Women who featured prominently on the third day with a major address reiterating what she has said at other venues during her brief tenure. Prof. Joseph Stiglitz, economic adviser to the Secretary-General, was a no show due to his inability to be at two places at once on a snowy day.

Among the delegates who spoke, two could be considered “friendly.” The delegate from Trinidad &Tobago who spoke on behalf of the Caribbean Community included supportive and family friendly references in his statement. (I subsequently learned he had received input from one pro-life, pro-family NGO!)

Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the Papal Nuncio, spoke eloquently in defense of the dignity of life at all stages from the preborn to loneliness in old age.

One of the worst was a long statement delivered by the delegate from Uruguay with repeated pejorative references to the sexual and reproductive rights agenda.

The United Nations has created “major groups” among the NGOs that represent and advocate the same message/agenda. These include women, youth and others. A young person spoke on behalf of the “youth group” and in her first sentence advocated equality for the LGBT community followed by all sorts of sexual and reproductive matters for youth with services to be available without parental consent. (A similar message had been heard at a previous OWG meeting in June.) While she made no effort to be ‘inclusive’ it was clear that she did not represent the entire global youth community.

The danger of all these meetings remains that ideologues are everywhere. They are forceful in advocating certain language that will find its way to the stand alone goals for the SDGs. By sheer repetition they hope to get their way.

Among the novelties heard were several calls for developing data on gender this and that, an initiative that is likely to generate jobs for statisticians somewhere. There was even a reference to creating a “rule of law index” although this was not explained.

“Side events” always are part of any major UN agenda. These usually take place at 1:15pm, interfering with lunch! Duty called to “Achieving Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment for Sustainable Development” but this only gave some dignitaries and one NGO (out of nearly 4,000) a second chance to state their same message.

Several side events occur simultaneously so one has to pick and choose. When I saw something potentially positive (there aren’t too many) on the program I chose to attend. On Tuesday, the program listed “How can tourism contribute to the sustainable development agenda?” organized by the UN World Tourism Organization. The quick answer is “immensely!” Today more than one billion people travel across borders for leisure, business, family visits, pilgrimages and more. International tourism receipts exceeded $1.1 trillion in 2012 and nations big and small benefitted.

A book was distributed entitled: “Tourism Stories: How Tourism Enriched My Life” which tells 14 stories of individuals and couples who started a successful tourism enterprise. One story was of a Vietnamese woman who ferries visitors in typical boats along a river that runs in a scenic area called Trang An. Today more than 1,000 boats travel the route and their rowers enjoy significantly higher wages and living standards in a tourism venture that started with the idea of one woman with one boat.

A delegate from Samoa spoke of the importance of tourism to her country which later this year will host a UN meeting of the SIDS (Small Island Developing States). This year Samoa is celebrating its “graduation” from the LDC (Least Developed Countries) group as that small country now has achieved middle-income status, thanks in part to the tourism industry.

Isn’t it nice for once to end a UN report on a constructive note?

Controversial UN Development Agenda

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The United Nations has, over the last few of years, been working to establish the basis of the next phase of its development agenda as many of its earlier programmes are coming to an end. The International Conference on Population and Development (otherwise known as ICPD or Cairo) which commenced in 1994 will end in December 2014, the Women’s Conference (known as Beijing) and the Millennium Development Goals end a year later in December 2015.

A series of meetings and conferences have been held in different parts of the world to try to establish the different regional priorities. Needless to say this process is targeted by ideologues who are determined to ensure that the final outcome documents contain  their deadly anti-life and family agenda.

One such process known as the ICPD Beyond 2014 Review, is according to a UN website ‘an opportunity to influence the future of global population and development policy at national, regional and global levels, providing a once in a generation chance to define what needs to be done to deliver a more equal, more sustainable world for the 7 billion people - and more - who share it.’

The process is geared to identify progress and achievements towards the goals set out in the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.

One significant attempt to include this agenda was rejected last year in the Rio + 20 Conference.

Another attempt was made during the most recent UNECA African regional conference, which took place in Addis Ababa from Sept 30^th to October 4^th, the purpose of which was to conclude a draft development agenda for the African region. A major controversy erupted as a result of attempts by sexual rights activists to include issues such as abortion and sexual orientation in the text. This resulted in 17 of the African Nations in attendance issuing strong reservations to the text which has been called the Addis Ababa Declaration but which has not yet been published in its final form.

In a press release, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) noted that 17 countries expressed reservations on three of the commitments in the final document and one the Delegate from Chad told the meeting “It must be put on record that Chad is not party to this declaration,” which he described as being “a subtle way of introducing something which may catch some countries unawares.”. The Zambia Daily Mail reported that “the majority delegates shot down a clause that would seek to promote gay and lesbian rights,” adding that this was “a clear reflection of the position of most African countries on homosexuality.”

 The African conference was the last in a series of 4 regional conferences and discussions now move back to UN headquarters in New York