Peruvian congresswoman scolds UN official about support for feminist groups

Lima, Peru, Jun 9, 2004 / 22:00 pm

A bold Peruvian congresswoman took the occasion of a visit by UN Human Rights official Paul Hunt to scold the United Nations for giving more funds to feminist lobby groups than to the poor and those most in need.

Hunt is on a tour of Latin America to promote the new concepts of health of the World Health Organization and the policies of reproductive health, which is a euphemism for legalized abortion.

During a visit to the Peruvian congress, Congresswoman Elvira de la Puente provided Hunt with statistics on the number of physical and mentally handicapped in Peru and the scanty funds they receive from the Peruvian government, as well as the great need for medicine, care, prevention and education in this specific area.

De La Puente pointed to three decrees signed in 2002 by the Foreign Relations Minister which indicated that the UN Population Fund would finance radical feminist groups with thousands of dollars to promote contraception, sterilization and “sexual and reproductive rights.” 

She added that these agreements instruct feminist organizations to “organize luncheons, meetings, and newspaper and magazine columns to make the government implement repoductuvie health policies.”

De La Puente said the tactics go well beyond the mere providing of information to young people.  “These are ‘professionals’ who are pushing sterilization and permanent forms of contraception,” she denounced.

“Instead of finanicing feminist groups whose idealogy is known to all and who promote sterilization and ‘safe abortion’,” the funds should be given to address real needs, she said.  “Perhaps there is a way to suggest to the United Nations that the millions of dollars they are giving to us be set aside for those who are most in need” and require emergency assistance,” she added.

The Pan American Organization of Health’s representative in Peru, Manuel Peña, who was traveling with Hunt, tried to stop De La Puente, alleging that with the funds, the UN is promoting “a reproductive health policy” in order to reduce adolescent pregnancies in Peru, which are at 20%.

De La Puente fired back that the millions of dollars spent since the government of Alberto Fujimori in the area of “reproductive and sexual heath” have been used to promote contraception.

“And despite having applied even irreversible methods such as tubal ligations and vasectomies, the percentage of adolescent mothers has continued to rise,” she added.

The Peruvian congresswoman denounced that the problem is that these programs aim to terminate pregnancies by promoting the legalization of “safe abortion” and they do not invest in “education and in the formation of young people’s intellectual capacity to control their sexual lives.”