Child sex book given out at U.N. summit George
Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published 5/10/2002
NEW YORK A UNICEF-funded book being passed out at the United Nations
Child Summit encourages children to engage in sexual activities with other
minors and with homosexuals and animals. As the delegations to the summit remain
deadlocked on abortion, international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that
support the U.S. delegation's anti-abortion stance circulated copies of pages
from a UNICEF-funded book given to delegates from Latin America that promotes
sexual activity and abortion among teens in their countries. "Reproductive
health includes the following components: Counseling on sexuality, pregnancy,
methods of contraception, abortion, infertility, infections and diseases," says
the Spanish-language book, whose title translates to "Theoretic Elements for
Working with Mothers and Pregnant Teens." An accompanying workshop book produced
by the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) tells Latin American mothers and teens:
"Situations in which you can obtain sexual pleasure: 1. Masturbation. 2. Sexual
relations with a partner whether heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. 3. A
sexual response that is directed toward inanimate objects, animals, minors,
non-consenting persons." The book, which was distributed by the Mexican
government with U.N. funding, suggests lesbian sex as an acceptable alternative
for girls. "Sexual relations with a partner: Here we should insist there is no
ideal or perfect relations between two or several people," the book says. "The
one that gives us the most satisfaction and that which is adopted to our way of
being and the style of life we have chosen. This is why we encounter many
differences among women. Some women like to have relations with men. And others
with another woman." UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside acknowledged U.N. funding
for the book, but said it was produced by the Mexican government in 1999 and
pulled from circulation "when the content was more carefully reviewed." Mr.
Ironside said he did not know how many of the books were circulated. "A very
small number were produced fewer than a thousand," he said. "It was pulled out
of circulation when the content was more carefully reviewed." "That book was a
product of the Mexican government, supported by UNICEF financially as part of
UNICEF's support to the Mexican government," Mr. Ironside said. "We do
everything we do in full agreement with the governments we support. We do not
operate independently," he said. He said the book was "intended as a training
manual for people working with adolescent women to prevent teen pregnancy. That
publication was a compilation of articles by different contributors and has a
very clear disclaimer in the front that the views of the writers do not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations." The workshop book is being
passed out by anti-abortion NGOs to persuade delegates from the large Latin
American bloc of countries called the Rio Group to support the U.S. proposal to
remove ambiguous language from the child-summit action document, which has been
used in the past by U.N. agencies to promote abortion. Delegations to the U.N.
Child Summit remained deadlocked yesterday in closed-door negotiations over
abortion and other hot-button issues that have held up final agreement on a U.N.
action agenda to protect the world's children. The U.S. delegation, praised by
pro-family groups for standing firm to ensure the agenda does not sanction
continued U.N. promotion of abortions, was attacked by NGO critics for a second
day at an afternoon briefing, NGO members at the meeting said. Douglas Sylva, an
official with the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, called the
briefing "an NGO feeding frenzy," in which the United States was attacked for
its position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; arms sales to allies; the Bush
administration's support of capital punishment; and U.S. failure to ratify the
U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. "The fact that the United States is
the only country besides Somalia that has not ratified [the] child's rights
[convention] is shocking," said Paula Daeppen, director in Zurich for the
Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas. "We're supposed to be a moral
leader of the world and child friendly," she said. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee,
Texas Democrat, told the meeting she applauded the administration's work to
protect children from pornography, exploitation and "child soldiering." But she
said she disagreed with the U.S. delegation on some issues. "There needs to be
flexibility on life," she said an apparent reference to the administration's
strong anti-abortion stance. A person close to the congresswoman, who asked to
remain anonymous, said her remarks were intended to urge "more flexibility on
