UN Agency Accused of Putting Children's 'Rights' Above Their Survival
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
December 10, 2004 6:07AM EST

By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
December 10, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The U.N. children's agency has come under fire from critics who say it has prioritized children's "rights" over their survival.

Some lay the blame at the feet of UNICEF director Carol Bellamy, a former New York politician whose appointment -- at the recommendation of the Clinton administration nine years ago -- was unpopular with pro-life conservatives. Bellamy's second and last term ends next spring.

One of the eight U.N. millennium development goals commits member states to cutting the mortality rate for children under five by two-thirds (66.6 percent) between 1990 and 2015.

But UNICEF's annual report on the state of the world's children paints a dismal picture of global efforts to reduce child deaths.

Figures in the report show that the reduction rate has fallen only by 16 percent globally since 1990, and by just seven percent in sub-Saharan Africa, where conflict and HIV/AIDS are the greatest threats.

In sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in former Soviet republics, the report says the best estimates indicate that the millennium development goal will not be met "well into the 22nd century."

Around 29,000 children under age five die every day -- 10.6 million a year -- including many from easily-prevented causes, such as diarrheal dehydration, acute respiratory infections, measles and malaria.

UNICEF was critical of governments that are way off target to reach the millennium development goal, saying that two-thirds of under-five deaths could be averted if children were to receive appropriate home care and if simple treatments for common childhood illnesses were available. Achieving the goal, it said, was "a clear case of will."

"Reaching the Millennium Goals will require a stronger focus on children and the realization of their rights," the report said.

But some critics believe that UNICEF itself has gone off track.

In the current edition of a leading medical journal in Britain, the editor writes a scathing article, charging that the agency has "lost its way" under Bellamy.

"This rights-based approach to the future of children fits well with the zeitgeist of international development policy," wrote Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet. "But a preoccupation with rights ignores the fact that children will have no opportunity for development at all unless they survive."

"The language of rights means little to a child stillborn, an infant dying in pain from pneumonia, or a child desiccated by famine. The most fundamental right of all is the right to survive."

Horton argued that with a background as a corporate lawyer, financier and politician, Bellamy had been ill-equipped for her role as "the world's most senior advocate for child health."

"While Bellamy has focused on girls' education, early childhood development, immunization, HIV/AIDS and protecting children from violence, abuse, exploitation and discrimination, she has failed to address the essential health needs of children."

Horton said that child survival must be located at the core of UNICEF's work. "Currently, and shamefully, it does not."

He also called for a more open and transparent process in appointing a successor to Bellamy.

Heads of UNICEF have been selected by the U.N. Secretary-General, reportedly on the recommendation of the largest donor nation, the United States. Since the agency's creation in 1946, all four directors have been Americans.

'Lost momentum'

In mid-2003, the Lancet carried a special series on child survival. A group led by Dr. Robert Black of the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University reported then that half of the world's 10 million deaths among children under five occurred in just six countries - India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

The highest under-five child mortality rates (number of deaths for every 1,000 live births) were in sub-Saharan Africa, where mortality in many countries was on the rise.

In the 42 hardest-hit countries, an estimated 43 percent of the deaths were attributed to just two easily-preventable causes, diarrhea and pneumonia.

The Lancet described the statistics as "shocking to those who believed that UNICEF had been making steady progress in improving child survival."

In the same series, a group of scientists and public health officials known as the Bellagio Child Survival Study Group urged UNICEF and other U.N. agencies to put child survival "back on the agenda."

While not directly criticizing Bellamy, they noted that her predecessor, Jim Grant, had launched an initiative called the "Child Survival Revolution" in 1982, and over the following 15 years "many countries made substantial progress in reducing child mortality."

"Since the mid-1990s, however, this momentum has been lost, and gains in child survival have slowed or been reversed."

Bellamy took the helm in 1995.

The Bellagio group also noted, however, that U.S. funding for child survival had declined in recent years.

"In 2003, USAID's health budget is the largest ever, almost $1.9 billion," it said, in reference to the U.S. Agency for International Development. "The planning levels for child survival, $326 million, were the lowest since 1995.

"These funding trends suggest that support for child survival has remained the same whereas funding for other diseases such as AIDS, malaria, or tuberculosis has increased."

'Inappropriate choice'

Bellamy's appointment by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali drew flak.

"Carol Bellamy is a highly inappropriate choice to run an agency that is supposed to promote the health and welfare of children throughout the world," Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ.) was quoted as saying at the time.

"We have been concerned that UNICEF is under pressure to change its mission focus and become an advocate for the population control agenda," he said.

Clinton White House spokesman Mike McCurry defended the appointment of what he called a "pro-choice" candidate.

"I, quite frankly, don't see how the issue of choice [on abortion] should relate one way or another to the duties that she will assume in this very important position at the United Nations," McCurry said at an April 1995 press briefing.

The Vatican in 1997 suspended its largely symbolic contribution to UNICEF, citing concerns about pro-abortion and population control policies.

In the years since, the agency has frequently raised eyebrows with its intervention.

Two months ago, for instance, UNICEF wrote a letter to New Zealand lawmakers who were considering a proposal to make parental notification mandatory in cases of underage girls seeking an abortion.

"The primary rights in this situation are not the rights of the parents to be informed but the rights of the young women to safety and support," it said.

The proposal subsequently failed.

The New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute said in a posting Friday that Bellamy was "considered by many to be a radical feminist who is well known for her pro-abortion stance."

"Under Bellamy's leadership, UNICEF has strayed ever deeper into controversial areas such as making condoms available to children and distributing graphic sexual education materials in Latin America," it said.