UNICEF Criticized for Promoting Controversial Programs for Adolescents

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has come under intense criticism from the Catholic Church and parent's groups in El Salvador for distributing and promoting a controversial sex-ed guide for Salvadoran children. This calls into further question the proper role of UNICEF in the developing world.

     UNICEF claims that family-based sex education has failed come from a survey the UN agency conducted in recent months. In response to the survey UNICEF created and distributed several hundred copies of a 170-page manual that teaches among other things about masturbation, homosexuality, contraception and abortion. An immediate firestorm engulfed the program.

     Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle of San Salvador charged the program violated the basic human dignity of the children and violated the rights of parents who have the primary right to educate their children. Lacalle told the Catholic News Service "The dignity of people, institutions such as marriage and the rights of the family are all practically demolished with this document."

     UNICEF is reported to have been surprised at the reaction from the church in El Salvador and from the parents and pulled the program confiscating upwards of 800 copies of the guide. Besides the controversial subject matter, opponents also criticized the teaching process called for in the guide. Experts were intended to train up to 6,000 adolescents as "peer counselors" who would teach the program to other children. The concept of "peer counselors" is seen by critics as a way to further divide children from their parents.

     UNICEF has come under increasing criticism in recent years for straying from its original central mission of helping children in extreme situations like hunger and disease. Under the leadership of radical feminist Carol Bellamy, a failed New York City politician, it has come under the sway of what many see as the population ethos of its UN sister agency UNFPA. One veteran UN watcher said, "UNFPA has poisoned so many other agencies at the UN. UNICEF is just anther one. The difference is that UNICEF has had a pretty good reputation. Working on so-called reproductive rights for children can only harm its position. It has a lot to lose."

     Three years ago the Catholic Church withdrew its $2,000 mostly symbolic annual contribution to UNICEF. The Holy See mission to the United Nations, which continues to monitor the UNICEF board of directors, withdrew the money when it became clear that the agency was promoting "reproductive rights" which includes access to abortion. At that time, UNICEF had participated in writing a "field guide" for refugee workers that explicitly promoted the use of a portable abortion device for use in refugee tents. UNICEF refused to segregate the Holy See donation so the Holy See withdrew and has not returned to financially supporting UNICEF. A source close to the Holy See said the reproductive rights trend at UNICEF was sad since "UNICEF also does wonderful work in childhood immunization."

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