Format: Real

Duration: 15:22 mins.

Inter Press Service International Achievement Award
United Nations, New York, 11 December 2000

REMARKS BY DR. NAFIS SADIK
Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund

I think I am finally speechless. I think those who know me know that I like to speak, but I think this evening has been a very special evening. I want to thank all of you so much, but particularly you Penny. I have attended so many ceremonies as you rightfully said many times. I feel rather to be a shock to be on the receiving end of a change like this. But then the way you researched my life, I am quite surprised how you found all those quotes. I don´t know which people you talked to, but I think everything you said was absolutely right. I do sometimes blow up, and I think the people that I blow up at will remember what I said, but I have totally forgotten it because it´s really for that moment. But I think that Inter Press Service has always done an excellent job of these award ceremonies. And I think that they have really chosen the right person to present this award to me.

I think I might have met you in 1975. But I do recall when I visited Australia, that I had to meet the first woman ambassador of Australia to the United Nations, and you were going to Geneva. I remember that because during 1994 when there some issues before the WHO, I suddenly thought of calling you because I thought we needed your help in getting those issues somehow resolved. And then at the Barbados conference I think you played a very important and excellent role in helping us to get some of the issues.

It is an honour too that Roberto Savio thinks well enough of me to give me an award. He is after all a man of great taste and keen discrimination, and we know that. We have campaigned side by side for many of the last 30 years and I always admired his ability to keep his optimism and his high ideals. And if there is somebody who speaks openly and very courageously, it´s also you, Roberto. And you Penny, even though you are a government bureaucrat, you do find a way to say the things that you want to say. And as Roberto said, you should be a journalist. The way you use words is absolutely wonderful.

Roberto, your shape is nothing like Don Quixote´s and I am sure he will never waste his time tilting at windmills. But he and the old knight have this much in common: that they could “dream the impossible dream” and go on to realise it, against all the odds. I wish I had an award to give you, Roberto, to recognize the great things that you and IPS have done for development and for journalism, and bringing the issues of the developing countries to the attention of the rest of the world. I think that has been absolutely a marvelous job.

I must say that when I recall some of my predecessors of this award, people of extraordinary achievement in the media and many related fields, I feel quite humble to be asked to join this company. People like Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali, Marti Ahtisaari, Danielle Mitterand, I remember Emma Bonino, one of the most outspoken people that one knows, many of them like Alister Sparks and Richard de Soyza, are people of outstanding individual perseverance and courage as people, who have stood up for what is right and who have often stood alone.

We, as Penny said so well, have come a long way since 1970s since the UNFPA was set up, in understanding the issues of population and development. I think that we have stood up for what is right. But I don´t think that anyone can claim that it was done by an individual. I think what we have achieved has been done by good friends, allies all over the world and all along the way. More people that I can count, people who were mentors and teachers to me, and certainly my predecessor Mr. Rafael Salas, my compatriot Mahbub Ul Haq, those who had faith in me like Javier Perez de Cuellar, the Secretayr-General who had the courage to appoint me. There were many men in the list of candidates, but he decided to choose me. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali who did his utmost to support me during the lead up to the Cairo conference and at the conference itself. I know many of my colleagues in the UN used to whisper in his ears, she is going to take the UN down the drain. He told me that himself. He used to see articles in the newspaper which were brought to his attention of what I had said. I must say I learned this later from him that he said that´s precisely what the UN should be doing. I didn´t know that and I was always worried that he was going to one day call me and say stop this nonsense. And of course my good friend Kofi Annan who is someone I have known longer than anyone else, but who has been such a tremendous encouragement to me and to the UNFPA since he took over as Secretary-General. And I am very pleased that finally I have found a man who will speak about the need to change male behaviour and male attitudes with regard to reproductive health, sexual health and responsibility and choice and promoting that for women. He said this just now at the AIDs conference in Addis. As I was drafting my own statement for the afternoon I suddenly heard the words that I have just penned coming from him, these false concepts of masculinity which means domination over women and subjugation. I used words like that, but he used them too, and I thought that was absolutely tremendous. And then there are the people who have worked alongside with me, like me good colleagues in the UNFPA and in the UN system, but parituclarly my good colleagues in the UNFPA as well as all of those in the NGOs in the population field, in the media. I was a bit surprised actually during the lead up to the Cairo conference and at the conference itself, I always felt that the media was supporting me though the media is supposed to be impartial. But the tilt it seemed like supportive of what we were trying to achieve. And perhaps that was also at that time there were lots of women reporters there. But there were also many men who wrote excellent articles in support of women´s rights. I remember very well a person, Bella Abzug, who many of you will remember who came late in life to the international field, but not too late to make an impression as big as her personality and the hats as you know she used to wear. I have had the companionship of that great and growing army of women - which also included a few far-sighted men - who can see that the future lies in equality and partnership. We have made great strides together and I am proud to have been in their company.

Of course I am not retiring. I am just leaving UNFPA in very capable hands. My successor is here. But I am also moving on. As Penny said, I do intend to time with my family, my children, my grandchildren, but still expect to be energized by what I see around the world.

Last week I was in Addis Ababa. In fact I just came back from Addis Ababa on Friday. And I visited a centre there for the treatment of vesico-vaginal fistule (VVF). This is a horrible injury, suffered during childbirth. The victims are most often young girls, mostly young girls, and chronically malnourished women, who have great difficulties in labour. The sufferers are left in great physical discomfort. I met several girls there who had been locked up in a room. Their food was sent to them under the door. For 17 years one girl was locked up. She was locked up at the age of 14 and she was 31 when this missionary found her and brought her out. Another women who had laid in bed because she really couldn´t get up because she was dribbling urine. I just want to tell these horror stories about issues we still need to address. The sufferers are left in great physical discomfort, but the mental torment is really worse. They are abandoned by their husbands and their families. But they are abandoned also often by their own families. They are unclean, they are rejected and they are not only crippled but destitute. I call them the “living dead”. They really were.

VVF can be treated fairly easily if the facilities exist. In many places, however, it is not thought to be a priority, not important. So for the lack of simple surgical repair, women are just left to live out their pain. And I shudder to think of the millions that really must have died in squalor and humiliation. I am shocked at myself that I have not realized the extent of this problem. In Addis Ababa this one hospital alone treated 1000 a year, and they said they were just reaching one little area of Ethiopia. In Nigeria there were 500,000 known in the country. In South Asia there must be millions. So this is something that really we need to look at.

The women I saw in hospital last week were the lucky ones. They were most grateful for their good fortune. They were healed because of the lifelong efforts of the extraordinary woman who runs this centre, an Australian, and a most wonderful hospital. Australia must be proud of it because they have financed that centre. And it is like any centre in any developed country. It´s made of simple materials but it´s so beautiful run and 20 of the practitioners are in fact former VVF patients so well trained. It´s a wonderful project. As I said, the Australian and I promised that we were going to try to fundraise for her so that she can do even more. But she came with her husband, her husband is a gynecologist too, in answer to an advertisement 30 years ago, stayed on and did this missionary work. She is an older woman, but she is totally committed.

But the main thing about this that I want to underscore is that they should not have needed this treatment. VVF is almost entirely preventable. It will not happen if girls are properly nourished and cared for, and if their reproductive health is protected, if they are not married before they are fully developed, and most importantly that they don´t become pregnant before they are fully developed. They are just not ready for childbirth. Young women in Ethiopia, like young women in all over the world in the developing world, still do not have a choice. They are married off while they are still children, really children. They are immature, they become pregnant too early and then they suffer the consequences.

The way VVF prevention is ignored is a symbol, I just used it as a symbol, of so much that is still wrong with the global approach to women´s health and empowerment. For me, this is a matter as important as banning landmines, ignoring women´s right to make choices about their health ahs the same random and devastating effect as sowing landmines. It is just as much the result of putting political advantage ahead of human well-being, it is just as pervasive and putting an end to it will call for unremitting and united action from all parts of the international community, and all parts of the civil society.

So what I shall be doing in the coming years is fighting on for women like the ones I recently met, just happened last week, in Addis Ababa. I know that Roberto and IPS will continue to support me and I hope that I can count on all of you here today to join me. Our work is not done. We have made a beginning. I think we are making a difference. But there is still so much misery in the world that we can do something about it. And I think that there is nothing more important than improving the life of an individual around the world, and that is our mission.

Thank you very much for this award. Thank you very much, Mr. Hogen, particularly for the wonderful tribute you have prepared for me; Mr. Robinson, for being the host; Roberto for really selecting me for this award, I really appreciate it; and you Mr. Hector, I just met you but I know that you will join us through your media in promoting the cause of women´s rights and women´s health. I have no doubt that you will do that. Please go to these places, to Nigeria, to India, to Pakistan, bring back the messages and put them on your media. That will change the perception of people towards making sure that girls and women have the right choices that they deserve to lead a full life.

Thank you.