UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
|
| UN Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) |
|
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This newsletter is being made available by the Population Information
Network (POPIN) of the United Nations Population Division (DESIPA), in
collaboration with Population Communication International. For further
information please contact Patrice_Newman@together.org
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INTERNATIONAL DATELINE
A Population and Development News and Information Service
APRIL WORLD POPULATION UPDATE:
5,767,400,000 (Population Reference Bureau)
APRIL 1996
THE WARS OF THE NEXT CENTURY WILL BE FOUGHT OVER WATER, a World Bank
official predicts. That grim forecast was based on a Bank study that
found 40 percent of the world's population lives in 80 countries
already suffering from water shortages that could cripple their
agriculture or industry and undermine the health of their citizens.
According to the study, the three major trends putting pressure on
the Earth's water supply are: 1) global population growth, and the
increasing need for food, irrigation, and economic growth; 2) water
supply contamination through domestic wastes, industry, agricultural
chemicals, and mismanaged land use; and 3) the cost of developing new
or more efficient water systems. The study estimates that
contaminated water may be killing at least 10 million people
annually, in addition to causing huge economic losses. As an
example, the Bank cites the recent cholera epidemic caused by
contaminated water in Peru, when losses from reduced agricultural
exports and tourism were estimated at US$1 billion--more than three
times the amount Peru invested in water supply and sanitation
services during the 1980s. The World Bank estimates that US$600
billion must be spent on water-related investments over the next ten
years, noting that in-country funds will account for most of the
money, but that $60 billion must come from international aid to the
developing world, including World Bank loans of $30-40 billion.
Ismail Serageldin, author of Toward Sustainable Management of Water
Resources, says that the most-threatened regions are the Middle East
and North Africa. If the drain on water continues at its present
pace there, he says, the supply per capita will fall from 3,430 cubic
meters to 667 cubic meters between 1960 and 2025--an 80 percent drop
within one lifetime.
SERAGELDIN TARGETS POPULATION GROWTH AND ITS ACCOMPANYING DEMANDS as
a primary cause in world water stress, declaring that "current trends
in the growth of population, urbanization, industrialization, and
income will not allow us to continue current practices without
crippling our health and our economies as well as causing irrevocable
damage to the environment." He notes that per capita water supplies
worldwide are already a third lower now than they were twenty-five
years ago due to the 1.8 billion people added since then. And he
says that the projected 2-or-more billion people scheduled to arrive
over the next thirty years will increase the demand for water by more
than 650 percent. "Although there are wide differences among
countries," says Serageldin, "they will all experience a reduction
of available [water] resources as populations increase." Serageldin
says that the problems associated with irrigation, such as
sustainability, expense, and environmental degradation, will be
exacerbated by increasing food demands, because half to two-thirds
of the necessary increase will have to be grown on from irrigated
land. Currently, irrigation accounts for some 80 percent of all
water used each year, producing 30-40 percent of the world's food
supply on 17 percent of the arable land, says the report.
THE WORLD BANK REPORT CONTAINS BACKGROUND INFORMATION, CASE STUDIES
OF WATER MANAGEMENT SUCCESSES AND FAILURES, and a framework for
improving management skills, as well as tables and graphics depicting
various water-use trends.
For a copy of the press release, contact us at PCI. For a copy of
the report, contact: The World Bank, 1818 H St., N.W., Washington,
DC 20433, USA. Phone: 202-477-1234; Fax: 202-477-6391. In Europe:
66, avenue d'Iena, 75116 Paris, France.
(Press Release/Toward Sustainable Management of Water
Resources, August 1995, World Bank, Washington)
* * * * *
IN BRIEF . . .
. . . THE EARTH'S SPIN is now faster owing to the huge volume of
water stored in artificial reservoirs around the world, according to
Benjamin Fong Chao, a geophysicist at the United States National
Aeronautics and Space Administration. Chao says that massive water
storage behind dams has both shortened the length of the day and
shifted the Earth's spin axis by tiny amounts. Over the last 40
years, people have pooled roughly 10 trillion tons of water in
reservoirs, most of them located in the Northern Hemisphere. The
process has shifted water from oceans to continents, tending to
reduce water mass around the equator and increase mass in the
northern part of the globe. Though the spin increase only means a
loss in every day of about 8 millionths of a second, the change in
the spin axis is more significant. Over the last 100 years, Chao
says that large-scale water storage has pushed the axis of rotation
about 60 centimeters away from the North Pole toward western Canada,
a five percent increase over its natural drift.
(Science News, 17 February 1996, Washington, DC)
. . . INTERNATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING ASSISTANCE from the United States
is about to take a nosedive. Under the current Congress, the U.S.
Agency for International Development (AID) is slated for a 25 percent
cut across the board, but the family planning/population assistance
budget is singled out for an even larger cut of 35 percent.
According to a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), the New
York-based reproductive health research organization, the U.S.
contributes approximately 17 percent of all funds spent on family
planning in developing countries other than China. AGI says that the
decreased funding will: deny access to modern contraceptives to some
7 million couples; result in 4 million unwanted pregnancies; account
for 1.6 million additional abortions; lead to 1.9 million unwanted
births; cause an estimated 8,000 additional deaths due to pregnancy,
and lead to an estimated 134,000 additional infant deaths. AGI says
that these are extremely conservative estimates of the slashed
budget's impact.
(Memorandum/Methodological Summary, Alan Guttmacher
Institute, February-March 1996, Washington, DC)
. . . THAILAND, the world's biggest rice exporter, increased its
sales by 27 percent in 1995. China and Indonesia imported more than
one-fourth of the 6.1 billion tons shipped from Thailand, whose main
rice-exporting competitors are the United States, India, and Vietnam.
Thai rice is considered high-quality because less than 15 percent of
the grains are broken.
(Christian Science Monitor, 9 January 1996, Boston,
Massachusetts)
. . . JAPAN'S BIRTHRATE rose in 1994 for the first time in 21 years.
The 1994 total of 1,238,247 births exceeded the 1993 total by 49,965,
according to Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Ministry
said that births to women in their early 30s contributed most to the
increase, accounting for a total of 377,375 babies born, up 20,288
from the previous year. According to the 1995 Population Data Sheet,
published annually by the Population Reference Bureau, Japan's
current population of 125.2 million is increasing at a rate of 0.3
percent and has a total fertility rate of 1.5 children per woman.
(Nikkei Weekly, 12 June 1995, Tokyo)
. . . AIR POLLUTION from cities up and down the east coast of North
America can drift as far away as Bermuda--750 miles due east of the
Atlantic coast, according to scientists at the University of
Maryland. The scientists think that seasonal spring cold fronts
sweep across urban centers, pushing ground-level ozone and other
smog-associated chemicals out over relatively pristine parts of the
North Atlantic. And because ground-level ozone is also a heat-
trapping greenhouse gas, the scientists think that the unchecked
spread of urban smog in the lower levels of the atmosphere could
possibly have regional or global effects on climate. (Earth Magazine,
October 1995, New York)
. . . A NEW NON-SURGICAL METHOD OF CONTRACEPTION is being tested in
the United States. Doctors in the northwestern state of Oregon are
beginning human trials of a procedure that involves inserting small
metal coils into a woman's Fallopian tubes through a tiny catheter.
The coils interfere with the movement of eggs and sperm, preventing
pregnancy.
(Los Angeles Times, 7 March 1996, Los Angeles, California)
* * * * *
CONSERVATION EFFORTS ON THE CARIBBEAN ISLAND OF ST. LUCIA NOW INCLUDE
A FIVE-DAY-A-WEEK RADIO SOAP OPERA designed to address the nation's
high population growth rate. In an effort to strengthen its already
extensive conservation efforts on St. Lucia, the Philadelphia-based
RARE Center for Tropical Conservation has teamed up with New York-
based Population Communications International [publisher of Dateline]
to assist in the creation of a locally-produced St. Lucian radio soap
opera that will integrate a variety of family planning and other
social messages into the 260 episodes currently planned. The
program, part of a population initiative supported by the St. Lucia
Planned Parenthood Association and the Ministries of Health and
Broadcasting (see related story, NGO Insert), premiered in February
of this year and is designed to motivate St. Lucians both to want
smaller families and to change their behavior to follow their
fertility desires. Entitled Apwe Plezi after the common St. Lucian
expression, "after the pleasure comes the pain," the radio soap opera
will also take up problems associated with teen pregnancy, domestic
violence, drug abuse, unemployment, agricultural economics, and
HIV/AIDS. St. Lucia's current population of 150,000 is twice what
it was in 1950 and is expected to double again over the next forty
years.
THE SOCIAL CONTENT OF APWE PLEZI'S SCRIPTS IS BASED ON EXTENSIVE
LOCAL RESEARCH. An initial series of 28 focus groups, comprised of
St. Lucians from 15-44 years of age, was followed by a 1994 survey
of 1 percent of the nation's population of reproductive age. Both
research efforts assessed knowledge and attitudes about such issues
as contraceptives and their use, the status of women, inter-family
communication, children in the family, modern life, and cultural and
family values. The sixteen-member Apwe Plezi cast speaks in St.
Lucia's linguistic mix of English and Creole. The characters are
situated in a variety of life circumstances and inter-connected in
various ways. Marcus, one of the series main characters, works as
a mechanic in a yard bounded by neighbors... One of his neighbors,
Morella, has five children from three partnerships and an abusive
husband named Chester, with whom she refuses to have sex anymore...
Georgie, Morella's 15-year-old son, helps Marcus out in the yard and
looks to him for guidance... Marcus is wondering whether to make a
long-term commitment to his home-town girlfriend Leona... In the
meantime, he sees other women in St. Lucia's capital city, Castries,
and protects himself against HIV/AIDS with them, but does not admit
his infidelity to Leona and therefore does not use condoms with
her...
ONGOING RESEARCH AND EVALUATION OF APWE PLEZI INVOLVES A GROUP OF
"SATELLITE FAMILIES" that listen to every episode of the soap opera
and record their impressions in notebooks that are collected every
week. Listeners log in such information as favorite and least
favorite characters, how many people in their household listen to the
program, whether the characters are believable, and whether or not
they enjoy the programs. According to RARE Center's Alleyne Regis,
the local coordinator for the project, Apwe Plezi is creating a lot
of "ruru" on the island, which he explains is a very St. Lucian habit
of quarrelling over current concerns. On a more serious note, Regis-
-RARE Center's Assistant Director of Conservation Education--adds
that many Eastern Caribbean nations are looking at the Apwe Plezi
model for possible replication.
ST. LUCIA IS A 240-SQUARE-MILE ISLAND NATION WITH A POPULATION
DENSITY OF 611 PEOPLE PER SQUARE MILE. Current desired family size
is estimated at 2.7 children per woman, while the total fertility
rate is 3.1 children per woman. The government of St. Lucia, which
supports the Apwe Plezi project, has set a goal of achieving
replacement level fertility on the island by the year 2000, which
would mean lowering the average family size to 2.1 children per
woman. RARE Center's programs on St. Lucia have focused on
preserving the rain forest habitat of the St. Lucia Parrot, endemic
to the island, through an environmental education program that
promotes pride in the island's biodiversity and a trail development
program designed to generate income for the local economy. Thanks
to RARE Center's efforts with the St. Lucia Forestry Department, the
island's rain forest now supports more than 350 of the endangered
birds--up from a low of 100 just two decades ago. RARE Center is
currently working on similar tropical conservation programs in 18
countries, including 12 in the Caribbean. Population Communications
International has provided technical assistance for locally-produced
social communications soap operas on radio and television since 1985.
The programs are tailored to their communities and promote such
issues as smaller desired family size, the use of family planning,
and elevating the status of women.
(International Dateline coverage, March 1996, Castries, St.
Lucia)
* * * * *
GLOBAL IMMUNIZATION RATES FOR CHILDREN ARE ON THE RISE AGAIN,
following stagnation since 1991, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO). Data show that global immunization coverage
rates for childhood diseases rose to 80 percent or more during 1994--
with the single exception of measles. The 1994 level nearly matches
that of 1990, WHO says, the year of the World Summit for Children
when immunization rates reached their all-time peak. But WHO noted
that the encouraging global figure hides wide discrepancies between
countries. In Malawi, for example, 99 percent of children were
immunized against measles and 98 percent against polio. But in Chad,
fewer than 25 percent of children under one year of age were
immunized against measles, and fewer than 20 percent were protected
against polio. While immunization coverage has been rising steadily
since 1990 in Southeast Asia, there are also some glaring exceptions
there, WHO says. In Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries,
immunization coverage rates have plummeted from 98 percent to 67
percent against tuberculosis, from 80 percent to 63 percent for
diphtheria, from 79 percent to 63 percent for polio, and from 68
percent to 61 percent for measles. In war-torn Afghanistan, only 8
percent of children under one were immunized against polio in 1994,
while only 12 percent received vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus and
pertussis, and 15 percent were immunized against tuberculosis. Forty
percent of Afghani children received the measles vaccine. WHO says
that immunization coverage has risen in the Americas, Western Pacific
and Europe, but dropped slightly in the eastern Mediterranean region.
(WHO Press, 3 October 1995, World Health Organization,
Geneva)
* * * * *
FEAR THAT CHINA'S FUTURE GRAIN NEEDS WILL DRAIN WORLD FOOD MARKETS
ARE UNFOUNDED, according to Jikun Huang of the China National Rice
Research Institute, Scott Rozelle of Stanford University's Food
Research Institute, and Mark Rosegrant of the International Food
Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). They presented their study at a
June 1995 conference called, "2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and
the Environment," co-sponsored by IFPRI and the National Geographic
Society and held in Washington, D.C. According to the study, China's
grain imports are unlikely to exceed 50 million tons by the year
2020, which the authors say is within the realm of the world market.
They predict a levelling off in per capita demand and increasing
growth of China's own food production--if improvements continue to
be made in agricultural technologies. A related paper presented at
the "2020" conference featured one such improvement--a new method of
rice breeding that promises to increase yields by 15-20 percent over
four to five years. A team of scientists from Cornell University and
China's Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Centre said that they use genetic
"maps and markers" to harvest high-yielding plant genes that are not
apparent in low-yielding plants.
WATER POLICIES WERE THE SUBJECT OF ANOTHER PAPER PRESENTED AT THE
2020 CONFERENCE. "Reforming Water Allocation Policy through Markets
in Tradable Water Rights" emphasized the need to encourage more
efficient use of this increasingly scarce resource. Authors Mark
Rosegrant of IFPRI and Renato Gazmuri Schleyer, former secretary for
agriculture in Chile, said that wherever the price of water for urban
and agricultural uses is kept artificially low, subsidies should be
reduced as part of comprehensive policy reform that also includes
establishing secure water rights. Another paper featured at the
"2020" conference advocated continued support for agricultural
research and aid for agriculture itself. "Foreign Assistance to
Agriculture: A Win-Win Proposition," shows that money invested in
agricultural research in developing countries brings a four-fold
increase in imports of additional goods and services, thus expanding
world export markets. The paper says that some U.S. farmers and
producer associations mistakenly believe that agricultural aid to
developing countries will diminish the U.S. export market, but adds
that the opposite is true. "Agricultural imports actually increase
in developing countries when their own agriculture sector grows," the
paper says.
THE CONFERENCE WOUND UP WITH A PROPOSED SIX-POINT "2020 VISION"
ACTION PLAN. Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Director General of IFPRI,
called for: 1) strengthening the capacity of developing-country
governments to perform such functions as ensuring law and order in
rural areas, securing property rights, establishing and enforcing
regulations and standards, and promoting competition in private
markets; 2) investing in the poor by providing access to employment,
basic health care, education, and productive resources such as land
and credit; 3) increasing agricultural growth through investments in
research and extension; 4) promoting sustainable agricultural
intensification with special emphasis on areas with fragile soils,
limited rainfall, and widespread poverty; 5) developing effective,
efficient and low-cost agricultural input and output markets; and 6)
expanding international assistance and making it more efficient.
Andersen said that small-scale private enterprise is critical for
developing countries right now, because competing small private firms
generate more labor and increase people's purchasing power.
(Financial Times, 16 June 1995, London)
* * * * *
THE RIGHT OF ALL PEOPLES TO A CLEAN AND SAFE ENVIRONMENT IS THE
thesis of a paper prepared by the Washington-based Worldwatch
Institute. In Eco-Justice: Linking Human Rights and the Environment,
Worldwatch asserts that "the ravages of environmental exploitation
are often backed up by brutal human rights violations" not only in
Nigeria--where Ken Saro-Wiwa and other environmental activists were
recently put to death--but in scores of other countries.
Specifically, the Worldwatch paper cites Brazil, Kenya, the
Philippines, China and the United States. Researcher Aaron Sachs
notes that Saro-Wiwa was a member of Nigeria's Ogoni people, whose
land is being devastated by Shell Oil operations. And, Sachs adds,
the Ogonis are "just one of hundreds of marginalized communities
around the world who are losing their livelihood, traditional
cultures and even their lives" to the invasion of loggers, ranchers
and, as in Nigeria, oil drillers "cashing in on their environment."
Attempts by the victims to organize are met with harassment,
beatings, imprisonment and even murder, Sachs says.
THE WORLDWATCH STUDY LISTS EXAMPLES OF ENVIRONMENT-RELATED HUMAN
RIGHTS VIOLATIONS in the Brazilian Amazon, Kenya, Cambodia, Greece
and elsewhere. It also cites examples of ongoing and some successful
community-level campaigns for environmental justice in Taiwan, China,
India, Peru, Burkina Faso, Russia and Australia. In Siberia, the
Udege forest people are taking on invading Russian, Japanese, South
Korean and U.S. logging companies. The study says such examples
prove that "human rights and environmental issues are inextricably
bound together" and that movements espousing one or the other can be
most effective in alliance. However, the Worldwatch paper says, the
potential is not always realized because of mutual distrust and
organizations' reluctance "to stray too far from their traditional
focus." The study gives this example: Amnesty International, the
prestigious human rights organization, has little sympathy with
Sierra Club environmentalists spending energy "to prevent the
possible future extinction of an obscure species of bird while human
beings are being tortured right here in the present." For their
part, Sachs says, ecologists are exasperated with Amnesty
International's narrow human-rights focus on single cases of abuse
while desertification and water pollution threaten far more people
than torture.
Further information about the Eco-Justice paper is available from:
Jim Perry, Worldwatch Institute, 1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW,
Washington DC 20036-1904, USA. Phone: 202-452-1999; Fax: 202 296-
7365.
* * * * *
AIDS IN PUERTO RICO IS NO LONGER JUST A DISEASE OF INTRAVENOUS DRUG
USERS, SPREAD BY SHARED NEEDLES, according to reporter Maria Hinojosa
of National Public Radio, based in Washington, DC. Increasingly,
Hinojosa says, men are infecting their wives and girlfriends through
unprotected sex. Despite the high rate of infection of Puerto Rican
women, Hinojosa says that, "efforts to prevent the disease are often
stymied by cultural and sexual attitudes that affect not only Puerto
Rican women, but all Latinas." In a series of interviews conducted
in Puerto Rico, Hinojosa was told repeatedly that Puerto Rican women
are conditioned to be sexual and submissive at the same time. "Women
are taught, and many believe, that sex is an area where men have
absolute control," Hinojosa comments. Dr. Carmen Feliciano, a
pediatrician at the San Juan AIDS Institute, notes that in a recent
study, when Puerto Rican women were asked if they should have sex
whenever their partners wanted it, regardless of how they felt, close
to half of them said yes. And, she adds, since Puerto Rican males
are reluctant to use condoms and Puerto Rican females are not
"empowered enough" to ask them to do so, women are often placed in
a very vulnerable position. Social worker Silvia Lleras echoes
Feliciano. "We're told that a good wife and a good woman is always
ready and willing to satisfy her partner's sexual needs... telling
a woman to use a condom is like an empty phrase for them."
HINOJOSA ENCOUNTERED MORE ASSERTIVE ATTITUDES AMONG YOUNGER, MORE
EDUCATED PUERTO RICAN WOMEN. "The fact is," says one unidentified
young woman, "we young people screw around, and we like it, and we're
not going to stop even if there is this virus called HIV. All we
have to do is learn how to do it safely and have fun at the same
time." But age-old attitudes of female submissiveness die hard. In
the end, says Hinojosa, AIDS prevention comes down to a simple
question: "whether or not you ask your partner to use a condom." A
question which is harder to ask, according to Lleras, because it goes
to the heart of issues like trust and love. She says: "We must not
forget that in a country with so many social ills, the sources of
healthy pleasure are increasingly limited. So, if these women find
satisfaction or even a kind of escape through the affection or
pleasure they feel during sex, then it's really hard for them to let
go of that. And if using a condom means you may lose that man and
that pleasure, then their immediate needs outweigh the long-term
risks." (All Things Considered/Latino USA, National Public Radio,
Washington, DC)
* * * * *
SULFUR DIOXIDE POLLUTION MAY ACT AS A REGIONAL COOLANT, accounting
for variations in projections of global warming trends, according to
a team of scientists from the United States National Climatic Data
Center. Tons of sulfur dioxide are spewed forth by power plants that
burn fossil fuels, forming hazes of aerosol particles that, according
to the scientists' preliminary findings, could reflect sunlight back
into space, instead of allowing it to reach the Earth's surface. In
the United States, for example, smokestacks in 1970 belched 18
billion more tons of sulfur dioxide into the air than they did in
1950. After 1970, the U.S. legislation called the Clean Air Act
reduced emissions of this pollutant over the next 20 years.
Climatologist Thomas Karl and his team found that the increase in
emissions between 1950 and 1970 was accompanied by cooling
temperature trends, and the subsequent decline in emissions
paralleled warming trends in each affected region. The researchers
found the same link between sulfur dioxide emissions and temperature
change across the entire Northern Hemisphere. To double check the
results, the team is comparing records of temperature and sulfur
dioxide emissions in France, where sulfur-free nuclear power plants
now generate three-quarters of the country's electricity.
Preliminary findings indicate similar warming trends as sulfur levels
fall, according to team member George Kukla of the Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory. Despite the Clean Air Act, sulfur dioxide still
pollutes U.S. skies--more than 45 billion tons blew into the air in
1990 alone. The scientists says that the cooling associated with
this pollution is regional, and does not offset greenhouse warming
on a global scale. (Earth Magazine, October 1995, New York)
* * * * *
IT'S CARNIVAL TIME IN BRAZIL AND THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH HAS LAUNCHED
A MEDIA CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE THE USE OF CONDOMS. Called Sexo Seguro
e Alegria Geral (Safe Sex and Happiness All Around), the campaign has
enlisted NGO volunteers to help distribute 11.5 million condoms and
AIDS brochures during the Carnival season. "We don't believe that
AIDS prevention campaigns should be run only during Carnival," said
one volunteer, "but we also know that Carnival is a time in which
people really let themselves go." Both heterosexuals and homosexuals
are being targeted. Carnival participants seem to be welcoming the
campaign. "I think they should give out more than one [condom]," said
one samba dancer as she was given a camisinha, the Brazilian
colloquial term for condom. Government authorities say they are not
worried about possible criticism from conservative sectors, since,
they argue, when AIDS is at issue, any method that can build
awareness among the general population is valid. The disease affects
more than 72,000 people in Brazil, mostly men aged 15-49. AIDS
prevention campaigns like this have led to a doubling in condom sales
in Brazil in recent years.
(Univision Evening News, 15 February 1996, report by Fabiana
Frassanet filed from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
* * * * *
NGO SUPPLEMENT April 1996
For and About NGOs and their Work
THREE NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs) AND THE ST. LUCIA
GOVERNMENT ARE COOPERATING TOGETHER on a new population initiative
organized by one of the NGOs (see related story, p.3 of Dateline).
RARE Center for Tropical Conservation, based in the U.S. city of
Philadelphia, decided to organize a population initiative on St.
Lucia when it saw its rain forest preservation successes threatened
by St. Lucia's current demographic equation--a population of 150,000
that is double what it was in 1950 and is scheduled to double again
over the next forty years. RARE Center contacted Population
Communications International (publisher of Dateline), a New York-
based NGO, to provide technical assistance on the communications
dimension of the project--a radio soap opera entitled Apwe Plezi (see
p. 3 of Dateline). RARE reached out to the St. Lucia Planned
Parenthood Association (SLPPA), a St. Lucian NGO, to both support and
be supported by the project. As a co-supporter in the population
initiative, the SLPPA is ready to field any referrals prompted by the
broadcasts, has increased its education and counseling services, and
is expanding its outreach work around the island.
TO HELP THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD STAFF IN THEIR EXPANDING ROLES, RARE
Center sponsored attendance at a "Power Speaking Seminar" for two key
personnel, Senior Counsellor Patricia Biscette and Counsellor
Theodota Chicot. The seminar's objectives were to build confidence
in the participants' speaking ability; to help participants become
more powerful persuasive speakers; to improve their speaking skills,
and to teach them how to manage disruptive behavior and difficult
audiences. Both Biscette and Chicot said they honed not only their
speaking skills at the seminar, but their thoughts on how to organize
presentations. The second benefit for SLPPA from RARE Center's
population initiative is aimed at giving the SLPPA staff more
effective equipment and some added cachet on the island. RARE
provided the Planned Parenthood chapter with an impressive new jeep
fully equipped with a public address system, a video setup, paintings
of families adorning both doors, and removable billboards for
teaching about reproductive health and contraception. Biscette notes
that, "the vehicle will help us a lot, as sometimes we cannot get a
building where we could conduct an effective program." Now, she
says, "we are able to have our presentations right next to the
vehicle."
THE MINISTRIES OF HEALTH AND BROADCASTING IN ST. LUCIA ARE FULLY
SUPPORTIVE of both the reproductive health and communications
components of RARE's population initiative. Government health
centers are already established sources for reproductive health
needs, and Minister of Health Stephenson King said that he welcomes
the merging of health and communications as an imaginative and
potentially very fruitful approach to public health and population
issues. Johannes Leonce, Director of Radio St. Lucia, which is
providing both studio and air-time for Apwe Plezi, said that he was
glad to be supporting a program developed in St. Lucia, realized and
carried out by St. Lucians, and meeting the needs of St. Lucians and
their beautiful island nation.
(International Dateline coverage, March 1996, Castries, St.
Lucia)
* * * * *
A NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION (NGO) IN THE PHILIPPINES CALLED
'LIHOK-PILIPINA' has developed a program to fight violence against
women. A sample survey of women over a three-month period in the
Philippine city of Cebu showed that of all cases of family conflicts,
one third were related to sex and often resulted in violence. The
main reasons women said they did not enjoy sex were housing-related:
the bed would creak, the house would shake, and/or the neighbors
would hear. A door-to-door survey in two communities revealed that
six out of ten women had been battered. Of the 84 women who
approached Lihok-Pilipina for help between 1991 and 1993, 90 percent
suffered from violence committed by husbands and live-in partners.
About two-thirds of the women were employed or had their own source
of income and almost half had a college education. Lihok-Pilipina
provided services including legal assistance, medical assistance,
counselling, temporary shelter, and alternative sources of livelihood
to replace a partner's support. Of 27 sexually-abused females helped
by the NGO, one was under age seven, 12 were aged 8-15, and eight
were aged 16-20. All but three of these cases involved rape and
eight involved incest. Fifteen of the incidents occurred in the
house where the female lived.
IN RESPONSE TO THE INCREASING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,
LIHOK-PILIPINA FORMED COMMUNITY WATCH GROUPS which include
representatives of the police department, local officials, local
parish members, women lawyers, Lihok-Pilipina members and some
community leaders. The watch groups keep an eye on neighborhood
women who indicate that there are problems at home and provide
support if abuse takes place. Lihok-Pilipina is engaged in wide-
ranging advocacy work in the Philippine media, and the number of
women and girls referred to them is increasing as a result. One
focus of the group at present is bringing about changes in Philippine
laws on issues related to violence and women, including making rape
a crime against the person and not a crime against chastity, as it
is now. (Reproductive Freedom Matters, Number 6 November 1995,
London)
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ADVOCATES OF THE BENEFITS OF BREASTFEEDING ARE FIGHTING AN UPHILL
BATTLE against dismissive health systems and multimillion-dollar
peddlers of commercial breastmilk substitutes. Even much of the
medical profession is unaware of or indifferent to the benefits of
the natural alternative to artificial formulas. The situation was
highlighted at the Women's Conference in Beijing by the Baby-Friendly
Hospital Initiative (BFHI), which is promoted by the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization. As a
BFHI paper put it: "The health benefits of breastfeeding to women and
babies are known but not well-publicized by the medical profession."
BENEFITS TO FAMILIES' FINANCIAL SITUATION ADD WEIGHT to arguments
favoring breastfeeding. For example, the productivity of a mother
employed in firms with a policy encouraging on-the-job breastfeeding
is enhanced when she is relieved of anxiety about whether her infant
is being properly fed, BFHI says. Also, without such a company
policy, a mother may be forced to turn to higher-priced formulas--an
unnecessary expense that contributes to family poverty. BFHI also
says that a mother may have to deprive herself of proper nutrition
in order to buy formula for her infant. At the national level, BFHI
says, money spent on formula imports depletes funds that could be
used for health and other social programs. Even well-intentioned
donors of breastmilk substitutes to infants in war-zones can do more
harm than good. Rarely is there enough uncontaminated water
available to prepare the formula. In war-torn Rwanda, for example,
wet-nursing became widespread for infants who had lost their mothers,
and the practice proved much more beneficial than formula feeding.
AS A CONTRIBUTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL PRESERVATION EFFORTS,
BREASTFEEDING ALSO HAS A PROFOUND BENEFICIAL IMPACT. Observing that
"women have an essential role in the development of sustainable and
ecologically sound treatment of the natural world," the BFHI paper
lists these breastfeeding benefits: 1) The dairy industry requires
10,000 square meters of pasture for each cow, and in many countries
this demands clearing rainforest, causing soil erosion and the
reduction of plant and animal habitat; 2) Manufacturers and packagers
of plastic bottles, nipples, and other artificial infant-feeding
paraphernalia generate tons of unnecessary waste, most of which is
not recycled; 3) Delivery of infant-feeding products generates
energy waste and pollution; and 4) Preparing infant formula requires
water and fuel, both of which are scarce in much of the developing
world.
For more information, contact: BFHI News, UNICEF, 3 United
Nations Plaza, H-9F, New York, NY 10017, USA. Phone: 212-326-7072;
Fax: 212-326-7768. The Editor of the newsletter welcomes information
on baby-friendly activities. Send to above address.
(BFHI News, July/August 1995, UNICEF, New York)
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