Population policies can erode reproductive, human rights, warns United Nations agency

A new report from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warns that government policies aimed at raising, lowering or maintaining the fertility rate can undermine reproductive and human rights and says that the aim is to improve gender equality and quality of life.

“There is a serious danger that rights will be undermined,” Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s executive director, told reporters last week in New York during a press briefing on the report, which was released on Wednesday. “This has happened in several places.”

As the world’s population reaches eight billion, the UNFPA State of World Population 2023 report says that human reproduction is neither the problem nor the solution to many of today’s big problems – including climate change, pandemics, conflict and economic uncertainty – which have led to concerns about overpopulation. and less population.

Instead, it calls for public investment to ensure “equal access to quality education, employment, health coverage and social protection,” so that the bodies of women and girls are not considered “instruments to implement the ideals of the population.”

The authors of the report found that only 56 percent of women are able to make their own decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Population unrest

The UNFPA report includes data showing widespread public concern about the population after surveying 7,797 people in eight countries (Brazil, Egypt, France, Hungary, India, Japan, Nigeria and the United States).

The most common view is that the world population is too large and the fertility rate is too high. It also found that the more people exposed to media and conversations about population, the more concerned they were about population numbers, fertility rates and immigration.

“The question is not whether the human population is too big or too small,” Kanem said. “The question is: Can everyone use their human rights to choose the number and spacing of their children?

“Sadly, the answer is weak.”

Policy of overpopulation and underpopulation

The report cites cases where population targets set by the government push people into reproductive choices they cannot make.

In Uzbekistan, for example, Doctors have spoken to the international media about the pressure to use sterilization to reduce the population rate, with the government saying that poorer patients cannot afford to have more children.

In Russia, “Heroine mothers” who have 10 or more children who paid one million rubles, or about $16,300 Cdn. Romania and the United States have seen restrictions on access to abortion.

In India, some countries are proposing a two-child policy by 2021including incentives for sterilization and fines for those who exceed the target family size.

South Korea, which has the lowest birth rate in the world, is now offering family payments and other benefits for anyone who gives birth to a child.

UN experts say the policy is largely unworkable in the long term.

“These measures will not help in any meaningful way to reverse fertility trends,” said Michael Herrmann, senior economic and demographic adviser to UNFPA.

Herrmann told the press briefing that demographic changes may lead to some of the challenges facing the world, but that “manipulation of population numbers” is not the solution, as these measures often only incentivize people to have children earlier, not more.

Fertility levels are distracting from the solution

Kanem said women in underdeveloped countries are often blamed for having too many children, while women in developed countries are blamed for having too few.

“This fallacy leads to the wrong person,” he said.

“Countries with the highest fertility contribute the least to global warming and are most affected by it.”

According to Kanem, only focusing on the fertility rate interferes with solutions such as reducing carbon emissions and consumption in rich countries.

The report also said that most experts now agree that “population change is normal, and population size is neither good nor bad; what is needed is a resilient system that can respond to the needs of the population, whatever its size.”

That includes promoting overall gender equality. In countries with high fertility, the report said, “empowerment through education and family planning” will lead to economic growth.

On the contrary, in older, low-fertility countries that are concerned about labor shortages, gender equality in the workforce is considered the most effective way to improve productivity and income growth.

Child care responsibility

In Canada, where fertility rates are low, some experts say the best solution to economic problems is through supportive government policies.

“Some of the childcare responsibilities need to be taken off women’s shoulders,” said Marina Adshade, an economics professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Adshade said policies that require or encourage more people to take parental leave; more flexibility for women and men at work; and affordable childcare will all make a big difference.

“It’s just not going to work if you just keep telling women that they have to sacrifice for the greater good,” she said.

For the younger generation, the choice to not have children is rooted in the lack of policies that support future generations.

In 2019, Emma Lim, a fourth-year student at McGill University in Montreal, launched a movement called #NoFutureNoChildren – pledge not to have children until the Canadian government takes serious steps to combat climate change.

So far, he’s stuck it out, saying he doesn’t like climate change policies.

“We have a housing affordability crisis. We don’t have a very strong financial future. When you add climate change … it just doesn’t look like a promising world,” Lim said.

It echoes a UNFPA report, which states that family planning without “improving the low status of women and girls worldwide will have only limited impact on broader economic and social development.”