US Aid Cuts to United Nations Will Harm Vulnerable Women and Children

The cruelty is the point.

The Trump administration will withhold funds from the United Nations agency focused on reproductive and maternal health care for a third consecutive year.... the decision will hurt vulnerable women and children, undermine US interests and is not based on evidence.

Withholding funds for reproductive and maternal health care from UNFPA for a third consecutive year will hurt vulnerable women and children.

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo authorized the move to cut $32.5 million in funding to the agency for its core operations addressing maternal death, female genital mutilation, child marriage and gender-based violence and meeting family planning needs.  

Pompeo's decision also denies the UN Population Fund, known as UNFPA, any US funding for emergency humanitarian operations in places such as Venezuela and Syria -- support that has amounted to as much as $36 million in previous administrations.

Numerous groups condemned this decision by the U.S. Administration to withhold funding from UNFPA. Elimination of U.S. funding to UNFPA threatens the health and rights of hundreds of millions of women, girls and communities around the world.

The UNFPA cuts are part of a broader Trump administration pushback against reproductive health.... The administration has also drastically expanded a policy meant to deprive international aid groups of funding if they discuss or provide abortions -- cutting aid for all their health programs, from nutrition to tuberculosis, if they do.

"The Trump administration shouldn't fabricate excuses to withdraw funding from the UNFPA, especially when vital, life-saving work is at risk," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat who sits on the foreign relations committee.

 

Trump and Republican war on women continues - including the most vulnerable, who find themselves in humanitarian crises. 

The US cuts come at a time when needs are enormous. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA's executive director, estimates that in 2018 "a staggering 136 million people needed aid, an estimated 34 million of whom were women of reproductive age."

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/us-aid-cut-unfpa/index.html