A New U.S. Policy at UN. . .

                               02-15-2001 UN Making World Unfit For Children

NEW YORK - As United Nations officials continue gathering for what is officially dubbed the "Second Substantive Session of the Preparatory Committee," for the Special Session on Children, to be held here September 19-21, critics are charging the draft document is nothing short of a plan to make a world unfit for children.

According to UNICEF, the UN body in charge of matters related to children, the upcoming summit is meant to review achievements made in the implementation of the 1990 summit's declaration and plan of action, and to develop an action plan to protect children's rights worldwide.

The problem, however, is that the United Nations' concept of children's rights has been distorted by radical feminists and population controllers to mean children's rights to sexual freedom, contraception and abortion.

The draft document unveiled this week, A World Fit for Children, which is being prepared for the General Assembly, contains various questionable parts.

Article 13, for instance, tries to undermine the concept of the family: "Families today exist in diverse forms."

In previous conferences, the United Nations pushed this type of phrase in order to undercut the mom-dad-and-children model of family life. Instead, the plurality of-forms concept is used to justify homosexual relationships and other variants, all of which, according to the United Nations, have equal validity.

Articles 32 and 34 promote "gender equality" and "gender parity," in line with the radical feminist view that the biological division of male and female is to be substituted with the concept of "gender," which can be modified or chosen by an individual, thus opening the door to homosexual rights, transsexuals, and so forth. Article 69 states bluntly: "Gender equality must be a paramount goal of education."

The phrase "reproductive health" is also promoted, which in UN terminology includes abortion. Article 60 insists on "access to quality reproductive health services" for women, which is understood in UN circles to include access to contraceptives.

Another area of concern is sex education. Family groups have long feared that the Convention on the Rights of the Child denies parents their legitimate authority and role in this delicate field. The draft document does nothing to allay these fears.

Article 75 speaks of "empowering" adolescents. Article 77 stresses the importance of educating adolescents regarding sexual diseases. But nowhere in this section is there a mention of the role parents should play in the education of their children regarding sexual matters.

Given the recent success of pro-family groups at conferences on population and women, UN functionaries are gearing up to muzzle any opposition to their plans. In recent issues of its Friday Fax, the Catholic Farmily and Human Rights Institute has warned of plans to restrict persons not in line with the official, radical proposals.

The most drastic move is the announcement by UNICEF that only two representatives of nongovernmental organizations may participate at any one time in the meetings. This is a severe blow to pro-life and pro-family NGOs working in the United Nations because they are vastly outnumbered by NGOs that back the radical feminist position.

Friday Fax also recently accused UNICEF of manipulating procedural rules to enable groups that support the UN positions to more easily send members to the meetings. UNICEF decided to allow two other categories of NGOs to send delegates.

One of these categories is called,unsurprisingly, "UNICEF NGOs. "The other category includes other NGOs that have a "special relationship" with UNICEF. According to the Catholic Family and
Human Rights Institute, pro-life groups report that one such
UNICEF NGO has been allowed to accredit 40 people. This same
NGO is said to be screening participants to ensure that they are
pro-abortion.

The delegate for the Russian Federation, N.V. Tchoulkov, said the proposed text was biased toward promoting children's rights while insufficiently providing for social and economic conditions and underestimated the role of the family in protecting the rights of the child.

In his speech to the gathering January 3 1, the Vatican's permanent observer at the United Nations, Archbishop Renato Martino, pleaded for the promotion and protection of the right to life, as well as the human dignity and rights of the child before and after birth. He also asked that the document include the declaration that the family was the basic unit of society and had primary responsibility for the nurturing and protection of children from infancy to adolescence.

New U.S. Direction

On February 2, the Internet news site WorldNetDaily reported that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has signaled that the United States will make a sharp departure from previous U.S. positions under the Clinton administration.

WorldNetDaily's Mary Jo Anderson reported: "Some nations were caught off guard yesterday, as a United States delegation to the United Nations clearly signaled a new direction in U.S. policy under the Bush administration, calling for greater 'parental authority' when crafting policy on children....

"While international reaction to the U.S. statement was mostly negative, observers in the gallery broke out in cheers after [Michael Southwick, deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations] concluded his presentation.

"The statement referred to the ,erosion of parental authority' and suggested that nations be invited to develop objectives pertinent to 'their own goals and in line with conditions and circumstances in their own countries.' Other popular points for those who welcomed the U.S. statement were the calls for monitoring to be done at the national level and a focus on education as President Bush has adopted for American children."

Anderson reported that the new U.S. position was sharply criticized by many European delegates, who accused the U.S. of trying to reverse the progress that has been made on children's rights, which often, from a European perspective at least, are limited to making children accessible to adults for sexual pleasure, as seen in constant efforts to lower the age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual sex acts involving adults and minors.

"A member of the Finnish delegation, Pia Heilo;' reported Anderson, "found the U.S. statement disappointing: 'It is against many of the provisions we are fighting to achieve here'."

Anderson's report for WorldNetDaily continued: "Yet others found problems with the underlying assumptions in the CRC and the draft document before the delegates, which is based, in part, on the CRC.

" 'Wherever you read in the draft document or in the CRC "diverse forms of the family," that's a red flag,' said Anna Halpine of World Youth Alliance. Such language could mean a homosexual liaison as in France, where a Pact of Civil Solidarity applies to both heterosexual and homosexual 'domestic partners.'

"Jorg Tremmel of the Germanbased Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations has propose lowering the voting age to 13. He cites the recent Florida case o 12-year-old Lionel Tate convicted as an adult of first degree murder. He points out thal if a youth can be prosecuted as an adult, 'then that same 12 year old is capable of understanding the voting process'."

On February 6, WorldNetDaily's Julie Foster reported on a soon-to-be-released study on the UN that Patrick Fagan, a former official in the previous Bush administration, produced for the Heritage Foundation.

Fagan writes, "Few Americans or members of Congress are aware that the United Nations is engaged in a campaign against the foundations of society - the family, motherhood and fatherhood, religions that espouse the importance of marriage and the traditional family, and the legal and social structures that protect them."

Citing an analysis by C-FAM, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Foster reported: "Fagan believes the UN uses international treaties and UN implementing committees to force countries to change their domestic laws and constitutions to adopt policies that will ultimately make women and children more, not less, vulnerable. Committees in the United Nations are attempting to remove prohibitions on prostitution, make abortion a 'demand right' protected by national and international law, de-emphasize the role of mothers by increasing incentives for them to work rather than stay at home to care for their children, expand children's rights and reduce parents' authority and change religious rules and customs that impede its efforts."

The C-FAM report by Austin Ruse also stated:

"The Heritage report points out that the UN committee in charge of the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) criticized Ireland for the influence the Catholic Church has on public policy. CEDAW also criticized the government of Italy for allowing medical doctors to use religious conscience clauses to opt out of performing abortions."