_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Sri
Lanka_______________
Fallout from population control
Leader plans to counteract UN programs
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake is lamenting the population-control schemes, heavily funded and promoted by the United Nations, which—he now says—have deprived his country of the manpower it needs for self-defense and administration.
Wickremanayake is now proposing a scheme to boost the country’s population by providing “baby bonuses” for families with more than two children—in a direct reversal of the UN policies trumpeted by the island government since the 1970s.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) regards Sri Lanka as a success story, in which aggressive family-planning policies brought the country’s birth rate to 1.4 percent (far below the 2.1 percent replacement rate) in 1999. UNFPA information sheets on Sri Lanka boast that even after the birthrate had fallen below the replacement level another $7.6 million was pumped into population-control promotion in Sri Lanka for 1997-2000—leading critics to wonder at the UN’s motives for depleting the population.
Wickremanayake complains that his efforts to enlist 10,000 soldiers in the army and 2,000 monks in the Buddhist clergy failed because people opted for smaller families. The prime minister encouraged his citizens to “concentrate on producing more children” in a launch of his “bigger is better” campaign.
Back to Catholic World Report August/September 2001 Table of Contents