When We Talk Population Today We Mean Women's Rights

Dr. Nafis Sadik, United Nations Population Fund

This speech was delivered by Dr. Nafis Sadik on July 20, 1999 at a luncheon celebrating "Cairo Plus 5," hosted by the International Center for Research on Women and the Congressional Women's Caucus.

I want to thank Senators Snowe, Leahy and Jeffords, who have sponsored this luncheon. I would also like to thank the Congressional Women's Caucus and its chairs, Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Sue Kelly for being here; and all of you for your staunch support for universal reproductive health, gender equality and equity, women's empowerment and for your support for the United Nations Population Fund.

Just last weekend I enjoyed watching the United States and China battle it out on the soccer field. How far we have come when women's sports capture the world's attention and imagination. As Newsweek's cover stated "Girls' Rule!" If it had been like that 30 years ago, we would not have needed UNFPA. We would not need to make the simple demands we are making now.

Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how difficult it is to persuade one half of humanity that the other half is just as capable, just as strong, just as deserving. I listen to the polemic language of our opponents and I note their gross misrepresentation of the facts and motives. And I think, if their case were stronger, they could make it more quietly.

Let me quietly state the facts:

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was the biggest gathering of its kind ever held. There were some 20,000 government delegates, UN representatives, NGOs and media in Cairo. At the conference 179 countries and territories adopted a Programme of Action on population and development which, quite literally, is changing the world.

First, the ICPD resolved the old argument about which comes first, population or development. Its answer was--both. Population and sustainable development go together and cannot be separated.

Second, the conference looked at population problems from the point of view of the individual man and woman. Rather than numbers and demographic targets, the conference focused on human rights and personal aspirations. This is the key to the whole agreement: women everywhere want smaller families than their mothers had. If they can have the children they want, when they want, then families will be smaller and population growth will be slower. It's that simple.

Accordingly, one of the primary goals of the ICPD Programme of Action is to make reproductive health, including family planning, universally available by 2015. And, it underscored the necessity and importance of gender equality.

Since the ICPD we have seen concrete results in every region of the world:

During the last five years countries have not only opened discussion on hitherto closed subjects, but that they have launched action to correct longstanding and prevalent wrongs against women. As just one example, refugees have long been denied access to reproductive health services. Since Cairo, UNFPA, UNHCR, the Red Cross, and a host of international NGOs have joined to provide reproductive health services to women in emergency situations. The latest such effort is in response to the Kosovo crisis, where an estimated dozen or so children were born daily just in Albania's camps.

ICPD was the first international conference to recommend action on female genital mutilation (FGM). Today, in less than five years, we have seen decisive action and concrete results. Fifteen countries have now outlawed FGM and individual communities themselves are taking their own actions to prevent it.

Domestic violence was until recently considered a private matter, not even suitable for open debate. Since ICPD, we have seen bold and courageous action against it, on both the local, national and international levels.

One further welcome sign of progress since Cairo has been a reduction in the incidence of abortion. In the many countries where better family planning services are now available, recourse to abortion has fallen. For example, in three Central Asian Republics--Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic--where abortion, until recently, has been the principal form of birth control, data from the Ministries of Health now show that the use of modern contraception has increased in these countries by about 40% since the beginning of this decade and, at the same time, abortion rates have declined by as much as one half. These countries have successfully created an enabling environment, in which women feel they have the right to seek information and the means of family planning, and in which men feel they too have a responsibility and a role.

Finally, since Cairo, partnership has become the hallmark of successful programs, with governments, non-governmental organizations, religious and educational leaders playing their part at national and international levels. The involvement of non-governmental organizations, as all of you may recall, was crucial for the successes of the ICPD, and it has been crucial for many successes since.

Because of the ICPD when we talk of population today we mean women's reproductive health and rights; we mean education and empowerment; we mean equality and equity. We also mean the right to personal development and equal opportunity. The role of government, of civil society and of the international community is to expand options. We understand that free will is the essence of development; and that the essence of free will is the power to make decisions.

I don't want to overemphasize the positive at the expense of losing sight of many continuing problems and constraints.

The largest group of youth in human history--tomorrow's parents--are entering their reproductive years. A billion youth between 15 and 24, need education, economic opportunity and they need health care, including reproductive health information and services. The opportunities that we provide today's youth will have a critical impact on their future and that of the planet.

Women's equality and rights are still far from a reality in many conservative cultures. Culture and religion are still falsely used as reasons to restrict women's rights and to justify harmful traditional practices.

At the recently completed United Nations General Assembly Special Session, the delegates of 180 countries forcefully addressed these issues. These delegates renewed their commitment to solving these most fundamental of human needs.

The Special Session represented a success of two kinds. First, it was a success for the United Nations process of building global consensus through open and inclusive discussion. Second, it marked five successful years of progress in implementing the Cairo consensus on population as a development issue concerning all nations.

In closing I must discuss with you a major obstacle to implementation of Cairo--and ultimately to successful realization of meeting individual choices, development and population stabilization. That obstacle is, of course, funding.

In Cairo, the governments agreed that to fund the implementation of the Programme of Action required $17 billion by the year 2000. $5.7 billion or one third was to come from industrial countries and $11.3 billion from developing countries. To date, industrial and developing countries are spending $1.9 billion and $7.8 billion per year, respectively. In short, the industrial countries are one-third of the way toward fulfilling their commitment and the developing countries about two-thirds.

These numbers tell a sad tale indeed. It is sad for the millions in developing countries who lack choices, opportunities, and hope. It is also sad for USAID, UNFPA, and NGOs who work tirelessly with developing countries to help fuel the locomotive for sustainable development, prosperity, equality and individual liberty and happiness.

There is a tendency by a minority of policy makers in Washington to confuse and distort the work of UNFPA. Let me dispel these myths once and for all. This year, UNFPA entered into an agreement with the Government of China to a four-year pilot project in 32 counties in China, to put into practice the human rights approach embodied in the ICPD Programme of Action. UNFPA is working with the Chinese government to demonstrate that enabling individuals to make free, informed and voluntary choices about their family size is the right approach to stabilizing population. In the 32 pilot counties, China has agreed to lift all birth quotas and targets including the one-child policy.

The Programme of Action firmly agreed that coercion has no place in population programs. UNFPA has never tolerated coercion in any population program. Further, UNFPA does not support China's one-child policy: nor do we support any policy or practice than denies individuals the ability to exercise their reproductive rights.

We firmly believe that individuals should make decisions about their lives and reproductive decisions, not governments. It is for that reason that UNFPA is working with China to provide women with reproductive choices and options for their lives. What we are doing in China is no different from our work in any of the other countries where we work--to provide healthy futures for all citizens.

The United States is the most powerful and the richest country ever in human history, and with this power and wealth come an awesome responsibility. The United States is the undisputed leader of the world. Its words and actions are magnified many fold throughout the world; when it backs off as it has in recent years from international assistance, so do others. When the United States moves forward, so do others.

We are on the verge of a new millennium full of possibilities. We know what to do: developing countries are finding the political will to act; we hope now that the United States and the rest of the industrial world will show the compassion and pragmatism to support those efforts. We will not let polemics and distorted facts win the day. We will not deny to our sisters and brothers the rights they should be able to take for granted.

Ms Nafis Sadik, Pakistani doctor, is the former Executive Director of UNFPA, and Under-Secretary General of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo. From the Pop!ulation Press, vol 5, # 5, Sept/Oct 1999.