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China and Vietnam need running water, not UNFPA
Westminster, 21 August 2002--The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has called on European Union governments to stop funding the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) after the publication of World Bank statistics which show that millions of women in China and Vietnam have had an IUD fitted or are visited by Pill vendors but still do not have decent drinking water.The 2002 World Bank Atlas states that 25% of the Chinese population
lack access to a source of safe fresh water, whereas 83% of women of
childbearing age have access to contraception. In Vietnam, 44% of
people do not have access to a source of safe fresh water, whereas 75%
of women of childbearing age have access to contraception.
Peter C. Smith, SPUC's delegate to the forthcoming Johannesburg
Earth Summit, commented: "Both China and Vietnam have coercive one and
two-child policies, which are co-managed by UNFPA. The rates of
'contraceptive prevalence' in these countries will include forced
sterilisation and the forced fitting of abortifacients such as IUDs.
"The UK and other EU member states should take away UNFPA's funding and spend it on real development instead, such as giving a proper safe water-source to those Chinese and Vietnamese people who don't have one."
