United Nations:
AID FOR HAITI DELAYED BY CONDOM SHIPMENTS
Babette Francis, March 20, 2010
During the UN's Habitat II World Conference in Istanbul,
1996, I was astonished to hear Dr Nafiz Sadik, then president of the United
Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), say that in disaster situations
such as earthquakes or floods, it was not the role of governments to send
only relief equipment such as flashlights, ropes, food and clean water,
but they should also be sending birth-control materials such as pills,
condoms and menstrual extraction kits (early abortion devices).
I could hardly believe what I was hearing, but I made careful notes and
that is indeed what she said. The mental picture this conjured up of a
rescuer with a flashlight and ropes offering traumatised individuals contraceptive
pills along with bottled water boggles the imagination.
In following years, confirmation of these UNFPA priorities came from Dr
Margaret Ogola, paediatrician from Kenya, a regular speaker at World Congress
of Families conferences. She described hospitals in Kenya well stocked
with every imaginable birth-control potion or device, but lacking antibiotics,
anti-malarial drugs, bandages and basic medical equipment.
The funding for this flood of contraceptives comes from the UN's World
Health Organization (WHO) and the International Planned Parenthood Federation,
via donations from the US, Canada, and Europe.
A few weeks ago, John-Henry Westen and Kathleen Gilbert of LifeSiteNews.com
reported that distribution of medical aid to thousands of earthquake victims
in Haiti was delayed for weeks by a massive supply of condoms dominating
the space of the main storage facility in Port-au-Prince. They wrote:
"The central pharmaceutical supply centre, known as PROMESS (Program
on Essential Medicine and Supplies), is home to the operations of the
World Health Organization (WHO)/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
in the area." According to an eyewitness with insider information,
"the glut of condoms at that same warehouse delayed the massive influx
of aid pouring in from around the world
and may have cost lives".
Westen and Gilbert continued: "The source reported that shipping
containers of medical supplies were unable to be unloaded, sorted and
distributed since an enormous supply of condoms clogged the facility till
early February, when the condoms could be removed. The condoms were estimated
to take up about 70 per cent of the space in the 17,000 sq. ft. warehouse.
"The scenario of medical supply buildings in the developing world
taken up mostly by condoms and severely lacking in health-care supplies
is not new. When Canadian General Romeo Dallaire returned from Rwanda
in the aftermath of the Rwandan Massacre, he noted in a 1996 speech that
military personnel referred to UN and other foreign aid as 'covering the
country with rubber'. [Some enterprising villagers did use the condoms
to cover potholes in their roads].
"Dallaire explained that tons of condoms and other contraceptives
were being shipped to and distributed around the region in quantities
far beyond what the population could use and in place of much more needed
food, medicine and other critically-needed aid. Medicine stores, he said,
were filled with contraceptives and extremely short of any supplies to
treat wounded Rwandans." (LifeSiteNews.com, February 18, 2010).
Showing business flair, some Indians have taken advantage of the condom-dumping.
The BBC reported in 2004 that, in one Indian city alone, 600,000 condoms
a day were used in the sari-weaving industry which used the lubrication
in the condoms to soften the loom's shuttle, making weaving faster, without
risking stains to the silk. (BBC World News, July 30, 2004).
Rick Stout and Barry McLerran's documentary, Demographic Winter: The Decline
of the Human Family (2008), which highlights the decline in birth rates
around the world, has been followed by a sequel, Demographic Bomb (2009).
Perceptive economists are becoming aware of the connection between declining
birth rates/ageing population and economic stagnation, a connection that
is apparent in Europe and Japan.
According to estimates from Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis),
the population of that country declined slightly again in 2009 from the
previous year. The decline is estimated at about 0.3 per cent - from 82.0
million inhabitants at the end of 2008 to 81.8 to 81.7 million one year
later. Since 2003, Germany's population has fallen every year. (Statistisches
Bundesamt Deutschland).
Why then does the EU - with Germany the largest donor - fund so many condom
shipments to developing countries? Is the objective to afflict these countries
with birth-rates below replacement level before they have even achieved
the status of First World nations?
Carol Ugochukwu, president of United Families of Africa in Enugu, Nigeria,
commented in a 2000 interview that Western delegations at the UN were
trying to "exterminate the whole race" with their promotion
of condoms.
Babette Francis is national coordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc., an
NGO having special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council
of the UN (ECOSOC). She has recently returned from New York attending
the 54th session of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women, where
thousands of radical feminists are lobbying to have abortion on demand
established as a "human right".
REFERENCES:
Nivedita Pathak, "Condoms oil wheels of industry", BBC World
News (South Asia), July 30, 2004.
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3934275.stm
John-Henry Westen and Kathleen Gilbert, "Shipments of medical aid
to Haiti delayed by massive condom overload", LifeSiteNews.com, February
18, 2010.
URL: www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10021812.html
|