Media

For Immediate Release:
November 28, 2004

Contact: Adrienne Verrilli
at: 212-819-9770 x325

U.S.-Based Far Right Organizations Strongly Represented at Doha International Conference on the Family in Qatar

Groups Known for Their Attempts to Undermine Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Initiatives and Family Planning

New York, NY - The State of Qatar is scheduled to host the Doha International Conference for the Family (the Conference) from November 29-30. Seventeen organizations that have expertise in international human rights and public health issues with a particular focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights have written the government of Qatar expressing concern that the Conference organizers may have misrepresented themselves and their mission.

"We know that the government of Qatar is committed to working with the international community to ensure the health of its people as well as the country's continued economic development," said Bill Smith, vice president for public policy at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS). "As advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights, we felt it was critical to inform the Qatar government that the U.S.-based groups that have organized the Conference are out of the mainstream. They are far right organizations that have been vocal opponents to comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives and the availability of family planning," continued Smith.

Specifically, the groups organizing the Conference do not support the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) or the substantive realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), all of which the Qatar government supports. Similar conferences have generated vocal opposition to UN initiatives and stand in contradiction to global consensus on both public health and human rights. For example, at the World Congress of Families III (WCF III), a "pro-family" conference held in Mexico City, Mexico in March 2004, Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey, U.S. Representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, decried the UN's "misguided course." She accused it of "continued discouragement of childbearing, disparagement of religion, intrusion upon parental authority, and emphasis upon the autonomous child." Furthermore, one of the featured speaker at WCF III, Steven Mosher, president of the U.S.-based far right group, the Population Research Institute, labeled programs that advocate for contraception "immoral."

"There should be no doubt that the agenda for the Doha Conference seeks to undermine global progress on health and development by turning back the clock on gender equality and reproductive rights," said Smith. "These organizations have deliberately attempted to link their conferences and other projects to the tenth anniversary of the International Year of the Family, an official UN project, in an effort to imply that they have the support of the international community. This conference, however, has no UN sponsorship, support, or endorsement," continued Smith.

"The policies advocated by these far right groups surrounding sexual and reproductive health harm real people, primarily women and children, in the poorest parts of the world," Smith said. "It is our hope that this message will increase public awareness of these radical organizations and will help Qatar and other government bodies, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations stand up to their extreme agenda and halt its damaging impact," Smith continued.

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U.S and International-based groups signing on to the letter to the Qatar government include: Advocates for Youth; Catholics for Free Choice; Center for Reproductive Rights; Center for Women Policy Studies; Family Planning Advocates of New Zealand; Family Planning Advocates of New Zealand - International Development; Interact Worldwide; International Planned Parenthood Federation - Western Hemisphere Region; Ipas; Marie Stopes International; National Council of Jewish Women; Pacific Institute for Women's Health; Rutgers Nisso Groep; Sensoa; Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.; Women for Women's Human Rights; and World Population Foundation.