Activists slam conference as 'anti-family'

By Santi WE Soekanto

BEIJING (JP): As delegates struggled to remove the brackets in the text of the draft Platform of Action, activists campaigned against what they described as "anti-religion" and "anti-family" aspects of the document.

The UN's 12-day Fourth World Conference on Women entered its seventh day witnessing an increase in the intensity with which religious and "pro-family" groups were making their presence felt.

During meetings, delegations unfurled banners in support of certain causes, while outside the meeting rooms activists lobbied and distributed leaflets warning of dangers of the largest world gathering ever.

Several activists told The Jakarta Post that the campaign for the protection of women's reproductive rights and the rights of girls has been twisted in such a way as to deny "parental rights."

"This conference is against parents," Hermina Dykxhoorn of the Alberta Federation of Women United for Families of Calgary, Canada, told the Post. "I'm a woman of faith, I'm a Christian, and I see what they're trying to do to parents."

"Four words are missing from the draft Platform for Action: God, husband, wife, father," said Reverend James Morrow of Scotland, as quoted by The Earth Times, the official daily of the conference.

Majid El Katme, president of the Islamic Medical Association, told the Post that the document seeks to remove "parental responsibility" towards children in matters such as sex education, contraception and abortion.

He said that at a meeting preparatory to the conference in New York in July and August last year, participants "vehemently opposed the word 'mother'" in paragraph 108 (h) of the document.

The clause in question currently reads: "Develop policies that reduce the disproportionate and increasing burden on (mothers) women (who have multiple roles within the family and the community) by providing women with adequate support and programs from health and social services."

As for the rights of parents in relation to the education of their children about sex, the document currently reads: "(recognizing the rights, duties and responsibilities of parents and other persons legally responsible for children...aimed at providing...information and encouraging abstinence until marriage as responsible sexual behavior) safe and responsible sexual and reproductive behavior, including voluntary...male methods for the prevention of HIV/AIDS...(including voluntary...condom use)."

The brackets signify reservations on the part of some delegations.

John R. Mathiason, the spokesman for the working groups in charge of deliberating on the document, said that diverse groups of delegates were forming various blocks in the negotiations.

He said there were also the "traditional negotiations," in which China and Group 77, whose members are mostly developing countries, face opposition from the European Union.

"It's a...diverse scene. This is a marketplace of ideas," he said on Saturday.

Katme said that "the terms 'reproductive rights' and 'sexual rights' in western society are increasingly used as phrases covering abortion on demand and all kinds of sexual activity with no reference whatsoever to marriage."

"Nobody, no state, no king or president, no United Nations, has the right to interfere with the intimate relationship between husband and wife, or to decide for them how many children they should have," he said.

"Moslem women have the freedom to choose, including to choose to be a mother or not, something much neglected by UN proposals and actually opposed on many occasions," he said.

Katme said that, prior to the conference, he had written to all heads of Islamic states and heads of state who are Moslems, including Indonesia's President Soeharto, warning them of the dangers of the conference.

The letter, which strongly objects to all proposals which contradict Islamic teachings, warns of "the proposed wider use of abortion, killing unjustly unborn, sacred life, under the guise of 'reproductive rights and health' and, by implication, the acceptance of the growing practice of female foeticide."

"All women have the right to life and to be born, instead of abortion and female foeticide," Katme said.

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