WASHINGTON, -- May, 1999 -- Steve Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute (PRI), today condemned the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for its misguided effort to prevent Kosovar women in refugee camps from conceiving and having children.
"Only heartless zealots could look at the hungry, thirsty, exhausted women and children who pour across the Albanian border and see an opportunity for population control," Mosher said. "The UNFPA is advancing its own anti-people agenda by distributing so-called 'emergency reproductive health kits' which are irrelevant to, or even interfere with, efforts to meet the real needs of the Kosovars for food, water, shelter, and basic health care."
A PRI investigation of the camps completed today revealed, in the words of one doctor, that "none of the raped women we see in the camps come in within 72 hours of the fact." This delay not only makes the abortifacient "morning- after pill" useless for rape victims, it puts already pregnant women at great risk of medical complications.
UNFPA officials in Washington, DC also confirmed that tens of thousands of doses of such abortifacient pills have been distributed in the refugee camps not only for victims of rape, but also for non-rape victims as a form of birth control. "The situation in the camps is chaotic," Mosher said. "Our concern is that the widespread availability of abortifacient pills will encourage rape as well as other abuses, such as exchanging food and water for sexual access to women."
PRI's investigation also confirmed that countless refugees are suffering from hunger, receiving only minimal rations of bread and eggs, while 'reproductive health supplies,' including crude IUD devices and abortifacient contraceptives, were present in abundance. Dr. Gezim Bashka, head of a maternity ward in Kuke, complained about the misguided focus on preventing births among the refugees. "Much superfluous material has arrived," said Dr. Bashka. "Today a load of birth control. Explain to them we need other things!"
Most seriously, the UNFPA, aided by the local affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the Albanian Family Planning Association (AFPA), appears to be engaged in a covert population control campaign against the Kosovars. Dr. Enza Ferrara, who works a refugee camp in Shkodra, confirmed that the UNFPA's agenda is to prevent the increase of the Kosovars. Dr. Ferrara recalled a visit from a UNFPA official at the beginning of the refugee crisis. When Dr. Ferrara asked why the UNFPA was so interested in promoting abortifacients among Kosovar women, the official responded: "There are too many refugees." "What about husbands and wives?" Dr. Ferrara pressed. "Don't you see!" the official responded. "They are refugees. They can't have children!"
Founded in 1991, PRI's mission is to document human rights abuses committed in the name of family planning, and to promote economic development through models which respect the dignity and rights of the individual human person.
Source: Population Research Institute press release
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