(C-Fam – New York) UNICEF’s Executive Board has approved a strategic plan that endorses sexual autonomy for children and school-based access to abortion and contraception.
The new strategic plan, which will guide the agency through 2025, added “sexual and reproductive health and rights” and “sexual orientation and gender identity” to the agency’s mandate for the first time. The Biden administration endorsed the new plan.
UNICEF already promoted the ability of adolescents to make autonomous decisions about their sexuality and the presence of sexuality education and sexual health services for children in schools. But this was the first time these had appeared in UNICEF’s internal strategic documents with the approval of UN member states, as the Friday Fax reported in August.
Thirty-six nations that sit on the UNICEF Executive Board endorsed the new plan with the disclaimer that it was not negotiated by UN Member States and that it “includes some terms that have not been intergovernmentally endorsed in the United Nations system.” The decision does not identify the terms in the strategic plan covered by the disclaimer.
The plan further protects Member States by directing the agency to implement the strategic plan “in accordance with the principles of national ownership of programme countries, taking into account their national priorities and needs, recognizing their different contexts and particular characteristics, guided by international human rights treaties and humanitarian principles for humanitarian assistance.”
“Sexual and reproductive health and rights” is a term of art coined by countries and groups to promote abortion….
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Editor’s Note: Stefano Gennarini, J.D., writes for C-Fam. This article‘s excerpt appears with permission.