PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNITED STATES-BASED NGOS ON IMPLEMENTATION OF CAIRO CONFERENCE OUTCOME

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNITED STATES-BASED NGOS ON IMPLEMENTATION OF CAIRO CONFERENCE OUTCOME

The largest-ever generation of young people -- a billion adolescents -- was about to enter the reproductive years, a demographer told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference sponsored by the United States this afternoon. Their behaviour would be very important in determining future population trends.

John Bongaarts, vice-president of the Population Council and director of its Policy Research Division, said the behaviour of that age group could be influenced by paying more attention to their needs regarding reproductive health, protection from unwanted child-bearing, education and jobs. Addressing those needs would help young people and reduce future population growth.

He said that despite ongoing declines in birth rates, the United Nations expected a world population increase of 2 billion in the next 25 years, the same rate that had occurred in the past quarter century, bringing the world's population to 6 billion. Birth rates in Europe and North America had been low for a number of decades now, and they were also dropping in many developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Some observers had concluded from those trends that population growth was about to come to an end, Mr. Bongaarts said. That was unlikely to happen, at least not in the next few decades. It was true that women were each having fewer children, but the number of women continued to grow very rapidly and the total number of births each year was still rising. That would be true even if women had only two births each. As long as the numbers of births kept rising, the number of people would rise. Expected future population growth in the developing world would make it more difficult for those countries to reduce poverty and to improve the lives of their people.

Mr. Bongaarts was one of nine experts at the press conference from a network of United States-based non-governmental organizations working to build awareness and mobilize support for United States implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development in the United States and overseas.

Obstetrician gynaecologist Amy Pollack said emergency contraception had one specific purpose: to enable women to prevent unintended pregnancy -- those who had been raped, who had no access to contraception, and those who feared that the method they had used had failed.

She said emergency contraception referred to methods that could be used by women in the first few days following unprotected intercourse, to prevent

an unwanted pregnancy. It worked before implantation, not after a woman was already pregnant. Emergency contraception was not effective in interrupting pregnancy. It was not harmful if taken inadvertently during an existing pregnancy or if used repeatedly although it was not intended for that use. Estimates showed that making emergency contraceptive pills available to all who needed them could reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by half annually. Emergency contraception was not new; it was the same contraceptive compound used by millions of women in the world since the 1970s. It was not RU486.

Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, said that contrary to what one heard in the International Conference on Population and Development from the Vatican and the Holy See, the vast majority of the world's Catholics were highly supportive of women's equality, women's rights, family planning and even abortion. In some African countries, Catholic women were using contraception more effectively and were using more modern methods than some of their sisters of other faiths.

In the United States, she said, only 29 per cent of Catholic priests supported the Catholic position that contraception should be forbidden in all circumstances. In Mexico, 66 per cent of Catholics that one could be a good Catholic believed and have an abortion. The vast majority of Catholics in Poland supported family planning. Wherever Catholics lived in significant numbers, they supported the services as well as the principles and values of the Cairo Consensus.

Amy Coen, president of Population Action International, asked how one country could be both the biggest donor in the reproductive health field and the biggest laggard. The United States allocated some $6 million annually for family planning HIV/AIDS and maternal health programmes overseas. That sounded like a lot of money, but it was not so much when compared to the size of the United States economy. It was less than 10 United States cents for every $1,000 of gross national product (GNP) -- one-third of what Sweden gave, relative to wealth, and just a quarter of that of Denmark.

The United States needed to join countries like Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands as a full partner and pay its fair share to make the Cairo vision a reality, she said. The country would need to increase its contribution by $1.3 billion -- the biggest shortfall of any donor -- in order to reach its fair share. Even with such an increase, the cost to each American would be that of just one ticket to the movies a year.

Chief Bisi Ogunleye, executive director of the Country Women's Association of Nigeria, said she wished to dispel the myth that the Cairo Programme of Action was part of a Western feminist agenda. The total Programme of Action was asking people to have the right to decide for themselves. It had been agreed in Cairo that men and women, children and parents should have free choice and be able to think for themselves. Why

United States-based NGOs on Population - 3 - 30 March 1999

should anybody think that whatever was going on in developing countries originated in the Western world?

Amparo Claro, general coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, said gender equality and equity were the cornerstone of family life, creating a safe place for all members in which domestic violence had no place. Men could develop sensitivity to women and children, creating understanding and solidarity between the older and younger generations.

Rachel Russell, an associate in Planned Parenthood Federation of America's global partnership and the youth member of the United States delegation to the Commission on Population and Development, said the sexual and reproductive lives of young people were neither a myth nor a theory. More than half of all new HIV infections occurred among young women and men between the ages of 15 and 24. In the United States alone, over a million young girls became pregnant each year. And around the world, young girls were dying from unsafe abortions.

Peggy Curlin, president of the Centre for Development and Population Activities, said that a survey of the United States public aged 16 years and above had revealed that 92 per cent of them supported the Programme of Action. They agreed with the statement "All couples should have the right to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so". Ninety-one per cent of Americans favoured United States funding to programmes that provided child survival services and services to young children, 90 per cent favoured funding efforts to give girls equal education opportunities while 88 per cent supported funding efforts to encourage men to take an active part in family planning to improve women's health.

Speaking on sexuality, education and youth, Katarina Lindhal, secretary- general of the Swedish Association for Sex Education, said the Scandinavian countries had learned that sexuality education created self-esteem and imparted negotiation skills to young people. It did not lead to promiscuity; an early start in sexual activity; increased levels of sexually transmitted diseases, adolescent pregnancy or abortion; peer pressure or forced sexual acts. On the contrary, young Scandinavians were very strict about fidelity. Moreover, the mean age among young Scandinavians for starting sexual activity was 16 or 17 years; sexually transmitted diseases had decreased by 40 per cent over the last 10 years; their pregnancy and abortion figures were among the lowest in the world; and they adhered to the use of contraceptives.

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