| UNFPA IN THE NEWS: WEEK OF FEBRUARY 22-28,
2003 Hundreds of commercial sex workers have staged
a demonstration in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, to protest
against forced
evictions from brothels around the country, reported BBC News
on February 24. Aid donors, including UNFPA, have insisted that
wider acceptance of the profession is needed in order to tackle
the health concerns. Read: BBC
News United News of Bangladesh reported February 25 that Sadat Ahmed
Dipro, 6, of Bangladesh has won the Grand Prize of UN Population
Fund's International Poster Contest-2002. Two other Bangladeshi
participants, Reshad Monsur and Sharmin Haque Lazi, have also
won the 1st prize in Category-II and the 3rd Prize in Category-III
respectively. The contest was held in Bangladesh on 29 June 2002
and winners of the 1st prize of all the categories were sent
to UNFPA Headquarters in New York. At a lecture at the National Women's Education
Center in Saitama Prefecture in Japan, Suman Mehta, UNFPA’s Global
HIV/AIDS coordinator,
said the social, economic and biological vulnerability of women
is one of the reasons the disease has spread so rapidly. "While
women are physically already two to four times more susceptible
to contracting HIV compared with men, young girls are even more
likely, due to their skin tissue being soft and undeveloped," Mehta
said in a February 21 story by Japan Times. “This susceptibility,
coupled with women's lower social status, puts them in great
danger. The social imbalance denies many young women access to
means that can protect them, such as education that gives information
about how to avoid danger." Read: Japan Times The Manila Bulletin (Philippines) reported February 23 that
the State of World Population report is an annual publication
of the United Nations Population Fund that compiles research
findings on a chosen theme every year. The report, “People, Poverty
and Possibilities: Making Development Work for the Poor,” is
the most serious reassessment of the role of population factors
in economic and social development to date since the National
Academy of Sciences of the mid-1980s. Saudi Arabia’s Arab News mentioned in its February
28 story that the State of World Population 2002 report from
the United
Nations Population Fund paints a gloomy picture of global poverty,
but it also makes recommendations for immediate and long -term
measures to reduce it. Read: Arab News The U.N. Population Division reduced its estimate
of the world's population in 2050 by 400 million, primarily because
of the impact
of the AIDS epidemic and lower-than-expected birth rates. In
The London Times February 28 story, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, head
of UNFPA, welcomed the news: “International efforts in the field
of population have been a success. Today, women and men in large
numbers are contributing to slower population growth. These decisions
are benefiting not only individuals, but also their families,
communities and nations.” Read: London Times Delhi Newsline reported February 21 that a
six member delegation from Sweden including five women parliamentarians
and Swedish
actress Katts Ahlstrom, who is also the UNFPA goodwill ambassador,
will be visiting New Delhi from February 24 to 28 to exchange
views and learnings on giving voice and visibility to the concerns
of the adolescent in both the countries. The visit is a collaborative
effort of Mamta, a Delhi-based NGO working with the underprivileged
and Swedish organisation RFSU. Read: Delhi Newsline At the National Conference on Maternal Mortality
Reduction organized by Women Health Project, Ministry of Health
in collaboration
with UNICEF, Save the Children and the National Committee for
Maternal Health, Olivier Brasseur of UNFPA spoke on the theme
of Child Spacing Saves Lives. The Pakistan News Service reported
February 26 that he stated that women of high parity face greater
risks during pregnancy and delivery, as do girls who get pregnant
at a very young age. Therefore, UNFPA’s support for the family
planning program has a positive impact on reducing maternal mortality
and morbidity. Pakistan Link also reported on the story on Feb.
26. Read: Pakistan
News Service and Pakistan Link In a February 28 op ed in The Christian Science
Monitor, Daniel Schorr mentioned Nicholas Kristoff’s recent New
York Times column
that noted “the idealist president can sometimes defeat his own
moral purposes. The Bush administration, outraged at the way
the Chinese government sometimes forces peasants to submit to
abortions as a population-control measure, cut off $34 million
in American funding for the United Nations Population Fund. As
a result, in Africa, more women and babies are dying. Less spending
on family planning brought more pregnancies, and last year there
were 800,000 more abortions. Thus, the idealist president achieved
the opposite of his desire.” Read: Christian
Science Monitor or listen to the February
23 segment from National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition O. Ricardo Pimentel wrote a February 27 column
for The Arizona Republic that urged, “It's been about eight months
since President
Bush shamed this country by withholding $34 million for international
family planning programs. The trumped-up charge was that the
United Nations Population Fund was paying for coerced abortions
in China.” In the meantime, two women are trying to do what Bush
won't: save lives. They are trying to raise that $34 million,
a dollar at a time if necessary. The column asked, to make your
tax-deductible donation to the 34 Million Friends campaign, you
can send your check to the U.S. Committee for UNFPA, PO Box 27777,
New York, NY 10087-7777. “Somewhere out there, a woman will thank
you,” added Pimentel. Read: Arizona Republic
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