UNICEF and HALLOWEEN

As Halloween approaches, parents should be alerted to the annual UNICEF

collection. Just before Halloween two years ago the Holy See, in a move

that scandalized many, announced it was suspending its annual contribution

to UNICEF. Specifically, the Vatican was concerned with UNICEF's

participation in the publication of a UN manual advocating the use of

abortifacients to refugee women, evidence of UNICEF involvement in advocacy

to alter national legislation regarding abortion, and credible reports that

UNICEF workers have distributed contraceptives - mostly of an abortifacient

nature.

Before breaking with UNICEF, the Vatican spent three years trying to

persuade it to repudiate 'Recommendation For Action', a 1989 agreement

UNICEF had signed with the World Bank, International Planned Parenthood and

four other UN agencies. This covenant

committed its signatories to promoting, among other things, legalization of

abortion everywhere. Since then, among other contributions, UNICEF has

spent $4.9 million in 1992 toward China`s brutal "one-child family" program.

Many disturbed at this action by the Vatican, including some in the Canadian

Conference of Catholic Bishops, have suggested a more moderate approach,

namely, the ear-marking of Catholic donations to special projects (such as

Africa`s important Mali water project). However, there is an insurmountable

problem with the notion of earmarking funds for legitimate UNICEF projects,

because that simply frees up other funds for illegitimate ones.

Although not specifically mentioned by the Holy See, there are even more

serious reasons for disassociating itself from UNICEF. Here are a few

documented examples of how we`ve all been tricked into believing in its

concern for the children of the world, when in fact this organization,

supposedly geared to the best interests of children, advocates killing them

in the womb. I would point out that all my information on UNICEF`s Chinese

"family planning" funding comes from official reports of UNICEF`s partner:

UNFPA (United Nations Fund for Population Activities).

* UNICEF provides financial support for China`s ruthless one-child family

program. In 1992, it increased support for the program - complete with

involuntary sterilization and forced late-term abortions - from $2 million

to almost $5 million. Yes, your Halloween contributions helping children!

* It helped in the printing and distribution of a document urging ready

access to abortion services as a human right. In fact, the 1995 U.N.

Women`s Conference in Beijing gratefully acknowledged UNICEF`s support in

printing and distributing their document urging "ready access to safe

abortion services" as one of the "human rights of women." Your Halloween

contributions helping children...

* It has participated in the publication of a U.N. manual advocating the

distribution of the "morning-after" abortifacient pill to refugee women in

emergency situations and has become involved in advocacy work on abortion

legislation. Your Halloween contributions helping children...

Among UNICEF`s most reprehensible actions was its association with national

immunization programs against tetanus in the Philippines and Mexico. The

tetanus vaccine given exclusively to women of childbearing age had somehow

been altered with a product designed to cause sterility. Millions of women

between 14 and 45 were immunized with this vaccine which many believe had

been deliberately contaminated.

What a sad development to see UNICEF evolve from a champion of the family in

the 1960s to become its insidious enemy today. This hostility is shown at

every opportunity in

its promotion of sex education and the practices of contraception,

sterilization and "reproductive health services" - a favourite U.N.

euphemism for abortion - for children and youth.

It is a mistake to think of UNICEF as a charity, like Easter Seals or the

Muscular Dystrophy Society, which are run by people with a personal interest

in the cause. UNICEF is an international government organization controlled

by UN representatives from over 40 countries. The well-intentioned fund

raisers and selfless people who work to feed and clothe the impoverished

children are not involved in establishing policies. Informed knowledge

about some of these would certainly make most of them recoil in disbelief.

UNICEF is now engaged in zealous, relentless, and also ruthless, population

programs. Women and children are attacked instead of mismanagement,

corruption, greed, ineptitude, and shortsightedness. Its social policy has

evolved basically into a social engineering function. In fact, UNICEF has

developed a vocabulary to cleverly disguise its unacceptable population

control agenda. Terms such as family planning, reproductive and

sexual health rights can be loaded phrases which most often really are masks

for abortion on demand or may take away the inherent right of parents to

educate and raise their families as they choose.

UNICEF`s Halloween contributions are not just designed to help children

exclusively? It merely poses in a cloak of humanitarianism, all the while

promoting family planning through abortion in Third World children. One

could be cynical and say that the little orange Halloween boxes are UNICEF`s

racist way of helping children by reducing the number of brown, black and

yellow children. When the mask is removed from the 'United Nations

International Children`s Fund' we can often find not innocence but a hideous

monster. It seems fitting that for innocent little children to solicit for

this organization they must don monster masks to be suitable representatives

of UNICEF. Let the repeated chorus "Trick or Treat" be a sober

reminder...UNICEF wears a pro-family mask - it`s a TRICK!

UNICEF has no business in population control. It must give up its

activities which are diverting some of its already scarce economic and human

resources from the care of the most basic needs of children to other areas

outside of that specific mandate it was given years ago by the United

Nations. It must be told to return to its original mandate of ensuring the

basics for children: food, clothes, shelter. Until it formally and publicly

repudiates its present anti-family and anti-unborn child social

engineering objectives, we Knights have no business really funding such an

organization and encouraging it with our hard earned dollars. So, here's

hoping you won`t have your children fill those little orange boxes on

Halloween, following the example of the Toronto Catholic District School

Board which nixed its support for UNICEF two years ago.

Thaddee Renault