UP TO five million children could die in the next three years because of shortfalls in promised assistance to developing countries in their reproductive health programmes, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
Mr Alex Marshall, editor of the 1997 State of World Population report, told The Irish Times yesterday that if goals set by the Cairo conference were not met, there could be 120 million additional unwanted pregnancies, 49 million abortions, five million deaths of infants and young children and 65,000 maternal deaths by 2000.
Mr Marshall was in Ireland for the fund's annual international media seminar, which is hosted this year by the Irish Family Planning Association.
Goals were agreed at the 1994 International conference on Population and Development (the Cairo Conference) for spending on reproductive health in developing countries. While these countries increased their spending each year, international assistance amounting to onethird of the total had stagnated, he said.
He said women's health and education were fundamental to the welfare of communities in general. Making quality reproductive health available would spare millions of women each year from death and suffering due to complications, of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Enabling women to decide if and when to have children also helped them to participate fully and equally in shaping the future of their families, communities and nations.
The aim of the 1997 report was to increase awareness that reproductive rights were an integral part of human rights, he said.
Ms Amie Joof Cole, president of the Gambian Committee on Traditional Practices, told the seminar that a campaign against female genital mutilation in her country had brought the issue into public discussion and ending the practice was now part of the government's programme on maternal health.
Female circumcision - the removal of some or all of the clitoris - is widely practised throughout much of Africa, in southern parts of the Arabian peninsula and among some minority groups in India, Malaysia and Indonesia. It also occurs among immigrants from these communities in Europe, the US and Australia.
It often involves deception and coercion of female children, it causes trauma and suffering among millions of women and girls and could give rise to serious medical complications and even death, she said.
Ms Joof Cole said her committee had been given a mandate to investigate harmful traditional practices and promote positive ones. "We are not anticulture. We are not antitradition. We oppose those which cause women and girls to suffer," she said.
The 1997 State of World Population report will be published next week.