UNFPA Funding Denied by U.S. Congress

The U.S. House voted 192 (in favor of the amendment) to 233 (against) to reject an amendment from Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D.-N.Y.) to the State, Justice, Commerce appropriations bill that would have exempted UNFPA funding from Kemp-Kasten protections. The amendment also could have exempted UNFPA funding from all other U.S. legal protections and restrictions. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) continues to subsidize Communist China's coercive population control program, which has prompted the Bush Administration to redirect funds away from UNFPA under the Kemp-Kasten legal provision. Maloney and her supporters were trying to circumvent that provision and restore the funding.

"It's disturbing that so many members of Congress want to eliminate U.S. protections on international population control money that prevent American money from going to coerce Third World women into having fewer children, often by undergoing forced abortion or sterilization," said Population Research Institute (PRI) President Steve Mosher. "As long as the UNFPA subsidizes China's coercive one-child policy in which Chinese women are limited to having one or two children, U.S. funding should not even be considered for this agency."

The U.S. State Department did its own investigation into UNFPA's involvement with China's coercive practices one year after PRI documented them. According to an investigation by the Population Research Institute (PRI) in 2001, a determination by the U.S. State Department in 2002, and another State Department determination in 2004, among other pieces of evidence, UNFPA's population control activities continue to assist the Chinese government's efforts to force married couples to have only one or two children at most. China's coercive policies are openly part of national law in that country and include heavy fines, loss of employment, and other sanctions for those who exceed their child quota.

Currently, a provision of U.S. law called the Kemp-Kasten Amendment directs the federal government to withhold funding from international organizations that assist coercion in population control programs. Maloney and others claimed that they wanted to direct $34 million to UNFPA just to combat obstetric fistula, but any money for UNFPA will assist it in its other efforts by freeing up other funds.

"If UNFPA wants U.S. funding, it must cease aiding human rights abuses in China," said Mosher. "At a time when the United States is promoting vigorously human rights around the world, it's not a positive step to overturn the U.S. law that tries to keep American money out of coercing Third World women. UNFPA subsidizes China's despicable program of forced contraception, abortion, and sterilization and should reform or be abolished, not rewarded. So-called pro-choice leaders are revealed for the frauds that they are when they support money for this United Nations agency."

"In July 2002, I determined that UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allowed the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion. . .," wrote Secretary of State Colin Powell in a July 15, 2004 letter. "[A]s in 2002, UNFPA continues its support and involvement in China's coercive birth limitation program in counties where China's restrictive law and penalties are enforced by government officials." UNFPA officials have praised China's coercive population control program as recently as 2001.

PRI sent an investigative team to Guangdong Province, China in Fall 2001, and found that in Sihui County, the UNFPA population control officer's desk was located in the Chinese government's population control office. UNFPA claimed that Sihui County was free of coercive population control measures, but PRI spoke to victims and witnesses who confirmed the presence of coercion in Sihui County, included forced abortion and sterilization.

PRI's full investigative report and other evidence concerning UNFPA's involvement in China's human rights abuses can be found here.