It has been obvious for years, that IPPF's sex education programs have been a monumental failure in the U.S. and other "developed" countries, where it concerns reducing the rate of teen pregnancy. One of Planned Parenthood's allies, the New York Civil Liberties Union says : "Every scientific study that has been done shows that sex education is correlated to, nothing else but, systematically increased use of contraception".Thus, the only result of sex education courses is to sell more birth control products. IPPF is in the business of selling birth control so it has a financial stake in seeing that more and more children use birth control.1

The same programs that were formulated and implemented in the U.S.and have failed to reduce teen pregnancies, are being exported to Latin America and The Caribbean, under the guise of lowering the rate of teen pregnancies.

But perhaps where IPPF is concerned, its sex education programs have not been a failure after all. Through them, IPPF creates the market for the contraceptive drugs and devices it peddles and eventually the legalization of abortion. IPPF profits from children having sex. In a video expose on the IPPF/WHR affiliate in the U.S. (PPFA), it was shown that one IPPF/WHR affiliate brings in over 48 million a year from teenagers who have sex. Another report on PPFA shows that it makes over 65 million a year in profits from the sale of birth control devices.2

IPPF promotes its hedonistic sex education programs and materials, euphemistically calling them "adolescent health education", "education in sexuality", "sexual health education", "reproductive health", "family life education", "contraceptive education", "population education", and even "HIV/AIDS prevention".3 IPPF's ideology is the acceptance of free sex, eugenics and birth control philosophies of its founder, Margaret Sanger. IPPF today is still trying to carry on the work started in 1916 by Sanger.

The first thing IPPF does to implement its sex-ed programs is "desensitize" the teachers through its "training", so that they in turn can effectively destroy any modesty or inhibitions that its future clients might have.4

Pro Familia (Pro-Family), Colombia's IPPF affiliate, is its "showcase" where it concerns contraception and sex education, which is mandatory from Kindergarten. Its program is the most inmoral one in the entire Latin American continent. Pro Familia was one of the non-governmental organizations which helped to develop this program. One of the booklets being used, like Planned Parenthood's in the U.S., promotes masturbation and homosexuality and includes semi-pornographic drawings.(5) Pro Familia was established in Colombia in 1965, and in 1988 it received the United Nations Population Award for its family planning efforts.(6) IPPF's Colombia program has been so successful for IPPF, that the birthrate has gone down 60% in the last 30 years, from 7.0 to 2.8.7 Perhaps this is the reason why IPPF's Western Hemisphere Region chose a Colombian woman as its president in the year 2000.

IPPF has established in many developing countries, the same type of "multi-service adolescent centers it runs in the U.S., offering cultural, recreational, health and educational activities." The purpose is to "attract young people who would not come to a strictly family planning facility."8 But if adolescents do not come to IPPF's centers, IPPF "trains" and uses young people in developing countries to find youth where they normally spend their time (school, work, on the streets), and involves them in promoting and distributing contraceptives and condoms to their peers. IPPF calls these young people "promotores", "youth promoters", "peer promoters", "community based youth volunteers", "youth multipliers", "youth educators" or "peer counselors".9 In its promotion of hedonistic sex education, contraception and abortifacients, IPPF uses young people to pervert other young people.

IPPF has also started the "Under 20 Clubs" in a number of developing countries. In its "Under 20" radio programs, IPPF trained youth discuss sexuality with their peers and promote IPPF's hedonistic sex education. The primary purposes of these radio programs are "encouraging teenagers to make use of the family planning associations' services and involving them in programs for teenagers". IPPF boasts that through these clubs, "teenagers are attracted to family planning centers with the prospect that they will find a fun club atmosphere, along with a special understanding of teenage needs and problems".10 IPPF's influence throughout the Hispanic world extends even beyond its centers and sex education programs in developing countries. Planned Parenthood Federation of America has a Spanish language section in its sexually explicit website for youth called "Teenwire" in the World Wide Web.

IPPF's strategies are basically the same all over. In Puerto Rico, Idalia Colon, the president of Pro Familia, IPPF's affiliate in that country, tries to justify teaching amoral sex education to Puertorican children with the same phony excuse that Planned Parenthood uses in the U.S.: "The majority of parents in Puerto Rico are not equipped to speak to their children about sexuality."11 According to IPPF, "the youth have the majority of the same rights that other clients have in the area of health and sexuality: the right to choose whether to have a sexually active lifestyle or not; to information; to contraception; to safe abortion".12

IPPF's attitude towards early sexual behavior by children is clearly expressed in a 1983 book published by IPPF/WHR headquaters. That book states:

"We have, in this delicate issue, a well-founded and contrary opinion to the majority of educators, parents and adults. We have ample reason to maintain that the precocious entry into sexual life, is not and should not, in itself, be more controversial than late entry. We hold that what turns it into an inauditably controversial issue, is the attitude of condemnation which an absurdly contradictory society maintains towards it".13

In "The Young Person's Guide to the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child and Sexual and Reproductive Health", IPPF clearly states that said convention is "the most powerful legal instrument available to all children for the protection and enforcement of their human rights", among which, IPPF includes "the protection and promotion of adolescent sexual and reproductive health"; that is, contraception and abortion. IPPF maintains that these are "human rights".14 In its IPPF Youth Manifesto, it states that "sexual and reproductive health services for young people must be: confidential, accessible, free from judgement and offer a complete range of services". It adds that "service providers must make sure that they meet the different needs of all young people, married or unmarried, whatever their age, gender, ability, beliefs and sexual lifestyle."15

IPPF is aware that the ultimate success of its agenda depends, to a large extent, on its ability to separate children from their parents, and the primary vehicle IPPF uses to accomplish this goal is sex education.16 IPPF asserts that "ten-year olds have the right to contraception, sterilization and abortion without their parents' knowledge."17 In order to push its agenda, IPPF devised a Strategic Plan called Vision 2000, which includes a six-point action agenda. One of the points is "to help young people understand and realize their sexuality in a positive and responsible manner by ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health care and by making them key participants in the design of such programs."18 IPPF urges governments "to meet the special needs of adolescents" and establish programs for counseling adolescents on family planning, reproductive health, etc. and for providing to them these so-called "services".19 IPPF believes that "adolescents must be fully involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of such information and services". This is one of the reasons why IPPF uses youth to reach out to other youth in its sex education and family planning programs.20

Where does the money to fund the terrible sex education programs in Latin America come from? One of the biggest funders is Bill Gates, who recently gave MEXFAM (IPPF's Mexico affiliate), almost three million dollars.21

As it does where it concerns abortion promotion, IPPF has accomplices for its promotion of hedonistic sex education programs in Latin America. One of them is its Japan collaborator, the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP), which also receives funds from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.22 JOICFP has a gimmick for raising a great deal of the funds it gives to IPPF affiliates in Latin America : the Postal Savings for International Voluntary Aid (POSIVA) program, which started in 1991 and is administered by the Ministry of Posts and Communications in Japan. Funds are collected at post offices nationwide, from members holding POSIVA savings accounts, who donate 20% of the interest on their savings supposedly to help developing countries.23 The funds are channeled to non-governmental organizations in those countries, mainly IPPF affiliates. JOICFP not only provides economic aid to its IPPF allies, it also provides them with "educational materials". Two of the films it distributes throughout Latin America are "The Blue Pidgeon" and "Music for Two", produced jointly by JOICFP and MEXFAM, IPPF's Mexico affiliate. These films, which border on pornography, are being shown to children 9 years old and up.24

Another IPPF accomplice where it concerns its hedonistic sex education programs, is Advocates for Youth, an American anti-life organization. The International Division of Advocates for Life "fosters global awareness of adolescent and reproductive and sexual health issues, and promotes effective policies, programs, and services for young people in the developing world." (Advocates for Youth website, www.advocatesforyhouth.org/ID.HTM, 11/12/00.) "Young people from the IPPF youth working group" worked with Advocates for Youth staff "to create a new global resource for young people." They launched the Youthshakers.org website, which has "four main components: sexual health information, resources for young peer educators, resources for youth advocates, and information about IPPF youth organizing."25

Advocates for Youth's own website, Youth Resource (which has a section in Spanish called "Ambiente Joven"), includes a special section for "Latino/Latina Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Youth" and another called "Young Gay and Bisexual Men: Stories."26 In its "peer counseling" section it tells the youth that "Many people are bisexual and bisexuality cuts across distinctions of race/ethnicity, gender, age, class, ability and religious affiliation." It also tells them: "You are not alone, and you are likely to meet bisexual people just about anywhere you go." It even advices them on how to meet other bisexual people. 27 Advocates for Youth's website includes information on "emergency contraceptive pills" (early abortion) and how to obtain them28, and it lists the National Abortion Federation Hotline for "abortion information".29 Advocates for Youth, like IPPF, has "international adolescent health programs in Latin America."30 Its "Life Planning Education for Grades K-12", was introduced in Costa Rica by IPPF's affiliate in that country, Asociacion Demografica Costarricense, under the title "Como planear mi vida". This same program is being promoted in other Latin American countries. Most of the booklets on adolescents that are recommended in that book are by IPPF affiliates.

The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) is also pushing hedonistic, IPPF style sex education programs in Latin America euphemistically calling them "education in population". Worse still, economic aid to Third World countries has been conditioned to population control programs.31

Even UNICEF is in on the action. It provided funding for a sex education book issued by the Ministry of Public Health in El Salvador, called "De Adolescentes para adolescentes" (From adolescents to adolescents), which has semi-pornographic drawings and tells adolescents that they "have the right to decide on sexuality, when, how, where and with whom" they want to have sex. World Vision of El Salvador also collaborated in the preparation of this manual.

Note: This article is part of a talk given by Mrs. Llaguno at the American Life League World Conference in New Orleans, July 14, 2002, titled "IPPF in Latin America".

Endnotes: