Reggie Littlejohn stands in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York
Reggie Littlejohn Tells U.N. – 20 Years After Beijing, No Progress Ending Forced Abortion in China
NEW
YORK. WRWF President Reggie Littlejohn will be a featured speaker three
times at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She
spoke to a standing-room only crowd on March 13 and will speak again on
March 19 and 20. The stated focus of this year’s UNCSW: “The Commission
will undertake a review of progress made in the implementation of the
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 20 years after its adoption
at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.”
Littlejohn
stated, “WRWF’s work to end forced abortion and gendercide in China
hits the center of the focus of this year’s Conference. The Beijing
Platform calls for an end to violence against women, including
‘Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated by the State,
wherever it occurs.’ Paragraph 113(c). Forced abortion constitutes such
violence, and yet in the 20 years since the Beijing Platform, forced
abortion continues in China. In addition, Paragraph 277(c) calls
governments and NGOs to ‘eliminate all forms of discrimination against
the girl child . . . such as prenatal sex selection and female
infanticide . . .’ and yet these practices remain rampant in China and
India.
“At the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference, former First
Lady Hillary Clinton boldly proclaimed, ‘If there is one message that
echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are
women's rights - and women's rights are human rights, once and for all.’
Yet, no substantial progress has been made to eliminate forced abortion
or gendercide since the Beijing Conference. Much work remains to be
done and the elimination of forced abortion and gendercide should be
front and center in all discussions regarding progress of women's rights
(or the lack thereof) in Beijing +20.
“It is ironic that the UN is discussing the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action -- focusing on gender equality and
empowerment of women -- while blatantly ignoring China's own
intentional, governmental subjugation of women and girls as expressed
through the coercive enforcement of the One Child Policy.”
Littlejohn will also speak about the link between forced
abortion and breast cancer, the complicity of governmental bodies,
including the United States, through funding the UNFPA, and about the
need for the UNCSW to adopt an Agreed Conclusion condemning the
sex-selective abortion of baby girls.
Finally, Littlejohn will discuss WRWF’s “Save a Girl”
Campaign, in which fieldworkers identify women pregnant with girls and
encourage them not to abort or abandon their daughters. WRWF then gives
these women a monthly stipend for a year, to help support these girls.
“We are saving lives and ending gendercide, one baby girl at a time,”
Littlejohn stated. “It is astonishing how little it takes to save a life
in China. We need support to expand this highly effective campaign.”
WRWF thanks the Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the
UN, as well as the NGOs co-sponsoring the UNCSW events at which she is
speaking: Endeavour Forum, Family Research Council, C-Fam, Eagle Forum
and the Population Research Institute.
