Dear Colleague:

Canada has become more aggressive in tweaking her big brother to the south
in matters large and small.  In deciding to replace some of the United
States' contribution to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA),
redirected by the Bush Administration because of UNFPA's support for
China's coercive one-child policy, Canada won't harm the United States.
She will harm Third World women and children.  Congressman Chris Smith
will hold hearings next week on yet more evidence of China's continued
efforts to coerce women to abort their children.

Steven W. Mosher
President


PRI Weekly Briefing
10 December 2004
Vol. 6 / No. 39

Canada Cuts off Chinese Women's Freedom in Order to Spite America's Face

By Joseph A. D'Agostino

Perhaps frustrated, together with France and Kofi Annan, with its
inability to influence American foreign policy, Canada's government
decided to increase sharply its annual contributions to the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA).  The official announcement of the increase just
happened to coincide with President George W. Bush's visit to America's
small northern neighbor.

Canada has chosen to ignore the evidence of China's coercive population
control program and UNFPA's assistance to it-or perhaps she doesn't care.
This Tuesday, December 14, the House International Relations Committee
under the guidance of Rep. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.) will hear new testimony
of abuses in China's one-child-per-couple policy.  Human Rights in China
reported November 24 that it "has learned from sources in China that a
long-term campaigner against China's coercive family planning policies,
Mao Hengfeng, has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in
custody at a Reeducation Through Labor (RTL) Camp in Shanghai.  Mao has
been protesting and petitioning for 15 years since she was dismissed from
her job because of an out-of-plan pregnancy."

Bush now redirects about $34 million a year in UNFPA funding away from the
agency because of its continued assistance to Communist China's coercive
program.  In a post-election lame-duck session of Congress last month,
UNFPA supporters tried and failed to get legislative language passed that
would have rescinded the President's authority to withhold the funds.
Under current law, the administration may redirect UNFPA funds if it finds
that the agency is helping coercive population control programs.

Shortly afterward, and during Bush's visit to Canada, Canadian Minister of
International Cooperation Aileen Carroll announced on December 1 her
government's intention to increase by 28% Canada's annual contribution to
the UNFPA.  (In a news release issued that day, which was also World AIDS
Day, the Canadian International Development Agency referred to the radical
social agenda that also lies behind Canada's involvement in such
international programs by citing its commitment to "taking on the
important issue of gender inequality and HIV/AIDS").  Canada's UNFPA
funding will increase to "$67.4 million over four years [including] $58.4
million to the UNFPA's ongoing work in the areas of sexual and
reproductive health and HIV/AIDS among women and girls.  The remaining $9
million will help improve the distribution of reproductive health
supplies, such as condoms, which are in very short supply in developing
countries."

Two days before the announcement, the Toronto "Star" got the story, spun
to it by Canadian officials as a poke at the United States.  "'Being
friends with the United States doesn't mean agreeing with everything,'
said a senior adviser in Prime Minister Paul Martin's government. . .,"
reported the newspaper on November 29.  "Until now, Canada has preferred
to make its opposition to the [American] boycott known more tactfully,
allowing the dollars of its continuing contributions to speak for
themselves. . . . Canada has never supported the U.S. boycott and has
quietly, if somewhat diplomatically, tried to help make up for the missing
$34 million over the past few years with modest increases."

"It is shocking and disgraceful that the Canadian government should
approve any increase in funding to the UNFPA without making any of its own
efforts to investigate allegations of UNFPA's involvement in forced
abortions and sterilizations in China," said Samantha Singson of Canada's
Campaign Life Coalition in response.

What have previous investigations shown?  Secretary of State Colin Powell,
no friend to the pro-life cause, found that the heavy fines imposed on
Chinese women for having too many children were, of course, coercing
them-most of whom are poor-to refrain from having more or aborting those
they conceive.  UNFPA does not directly coerce women, but its involvement
in the People's Republic of China (PRC) assists government officials in
their efforts, he said.  "UNFPA is helping improve the administration of
the local family planning offices that are administering the very social
compensation fee and other penalties that are effectively coercing women
to have abortions," Powell concluded in July 2002.  A State Department
fact-finding team had previously declared in May of that year, "In the 32
counties in which UNFPA is involved, the population control programs of
the PRC retain coercive elements in law and practice."  Sometimes, the
team said, fines for having more than one child can equal two to three
years' income.

Just a few months before, in December 2001, PRI investigators issued their
own findings after visiting the county of Sihui in Guangdong Province, 100
miles northwest of Hong Kong.  They found that UNFPA shared office space
with the local Chinese population controllers.  Says their report,
"Coercive family planning policies in Sihui include: age requirements for
pregnancy; birth permits; mandatory use of IUDs; mandatory sterilization;
crippling fines for non-compliance; imprisonment for non-compliance;
destruction of homes and property for non-compliance; forced abortion and
forced sterilization."

PRI will assist Congressman Smith in publicizing the truth about China.
We hope that the government of Canada, as well as the other funders of the
UNFPA, will listen and come to value the lives of Chinese children and the
freedom of Chinese women.

Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.

PRI
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Email: jad@pop.org
Media Contact: Joseph A. D'Agostino
(540) 622-5240, ext. 204
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