Coercion in Peruvian Family Planning Programs Imperils USAID Funding

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Powerful Republicans in the US Congress have promised to stop the Clinton Administration's promised increase of $170 million to international family planning programs. This comes based on information uncovered by the US human rights group Population Research Institute (PRI) that has revealed systematic coercive practices by the Peruvian government in population control programs.

     Peruvian women have charged the US-supported Peruvian government with giving them abortion-inducing drugs without their permission, and with inserting contraceptive interuterine devices (IUDs) also without permission. This would violate US law that forbids US money from supporting programs using such coercive practices. PRI first uncovered these abuses two years ago and presented witnesses at Congressional hearings. Although the Clinton Administration and the Peruvian government promised to correct the abuses in recent months PRI investigators returned to Peru and discovered the abuses had continued.

     After PRI's second report three US Congressmen requested the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to investigate the charges. The Congressmen were concerned that previous promises by USAID to correct Peruvian abuses have gone unfulfilled. Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ) wondered how USAID could be unaware of the abuses when it has "30 workers in Peru."

     PRI officials met with USAID personnel who promised the situation would be corrected. A letter from the Peruvian Ambassador said his government's Ministry of Health would investigate. At a Congressional hearing a few weeks ago, USAID Administrator Brady Anderson confirmed the Peruvian Ministry of Health was investigating the charges. Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) called this "unacceptable" since it is the Ministry of Health that is under the cloud of suspicion.

     Last fall President Bill Clinton promised pro-population control allies that he would increase US contributions to international family planning program in response to their anger that the Congress retained so-called Mexico City language in US law. [Mexico City language refers to the prohibition of US money going to international non-governmental organizations that overtly lobby to change abortion laws around the world.] Clinton's promise now seems in jeopardy. Indeed, Congressman Sonny Callahan (R-AL), Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations, says the Clinton request for additional funding will be denied.

     This skirmish is part of a longstanding war between pro-population control advocates and human rights activists who believe population control money is inevitably coercive. Just last year the same battle occurred over continued funding of the central UN population control agency, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA was charged with assisting Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in his program to eliminate ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo. PRI also investigated and led the fight against UNFPA funding.

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