In response to the news that President Trump has cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Amanda Klasing, National Director of Government Relations and Advocacy at Amnesty International USA said:
“Secretary Marco Rubio’s decision to once again block future funding for the UNFPA is yet another example in the Trump administration’s relentless stream of attacks on global human rights and health. This dangerous decision will disproportionally harm some of the world’s most marginalized people, as it compounds the damage already wrought by Rubio’s termination of more than $300 million of funding to the agency for 40 humanitarian programs around the world.
“UNFPA funding helps to empower women, girls and young people to have access to services like family planning, contraception, and care after birth. UNFPA also works to eliminate poverty, discrimination, gender based and preventable deaths — including through reducing rates of preventable maternal death.
“The United States has been a critical funder of UNFPA, contributing to safer health outcomes throughout the world. In 2023, for example, U.S. funding to UNFPA served an estimated 24.2 million women and couples and helped to prevent an estimated 8.1 million unintended pregnancies, 2.6 million unsafe abortions, and 14,000 preventable maternal deaths.
“The evidence supporting the decision has not been shared publicly – but it should be. However, if this decision, like in past administrations, is based on legitimate concerns about the Chinese government’s coercive reproductive health policies, it is a tragically wrong-headed decision. The U.S. is punishing UNFPA, and the people it serves, for abuses that fall squarely on the government of China to stop. Cutting off UNFPA funding around the globe purportedly over another government’s abuses is an irresponsible and anti-human rights move that will have predictable and devastating consequences in communities across the globe.
“Congress, as author of the appropriations amendment that provided Secretary Rubio with the authority to block funding that supports coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization, should demand to see the evidence for the determination and push back on the weaponization this authority to harm women and girls around the world.”
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