Cultural Sensitivity Required for Effective Development, UNFPA Report Says

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Official Site UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid’s Statement Press Release Video News Release Statement of Rev. Dr. Carlton Veazey, President & CEO, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

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Rosemary Musumba, +1 212 297 4929 Katja Iversen, +1 212 297 5016

Washington, November 12 – Cultural practices that abuse human rights, especially women’s rights, can best be changed through support for pre-existing change advocates within the culture, according to a new United Nations report released here and in London today.

Development projects to promote equality for women should integrate cultural factors into policy and programs, said the State of World Population 2008 report from UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund. But they do not have to be value-neutral and should not accept cultural abuses, such as female genital cutting, the report said, because human rights reflect universal values.

“Culture is used to justify practices causing the deaths of millions of women each year,” said Azza Karam, UNFPA’s senior cultural adviser, at the morning launch event. “But within each culture we will find both the obstacles and the solutions.”

Subtitled “Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights,” the report said cultural fluency, or familiarity with how a culture shapes people’s lives and beliefs, shows that cultures change constantly and contain contradictory currents.

Introducing the report, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) noted that the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president was an example of change through appeals to people’s better nature. She promised to ensure that the report receives a thorough hearing in Congress.

Pauline Muchina, a senior partnership adviser to UNAIDS, noted that several African countries moved to outlaw genital cutting after many traditional communities decided among themselves that the health costs of the practice outweighed its cultural uses. “If you only say ‘it’s my right as a woman’ without caring about the community, it won’t work,” Murchina said.

The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, described uniting 40 African-American church groups in 1997 to address “the vicious cycle” of teen childbearing, sex education and poverty through training for Sunday school teachers, parents, guardians and teens. “We can change the culture through religion,” he said.

Karam agreed, noting that religious organizations deliver 40 to 60 percent of all health services in some areas, especially conflicted zones, and can have great local influence. After learning about the harm to young girls from early marriage and childbearing, a group of Ethiopian clerics announced they would no longer bless or perform child weddings, she said. “It’s not our job to change views but to work with those who have common points of interest.”

UNFPA’s report coincides with the 60th anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It documents cultural traditions around the world that deny women education, health care and legal and property rights, noting that women are three-fifths of the world’s poorest one billion people and two-thirds of the 960 million people who cannot read.

Women themselves may be among those who defend these injustices because they have not seen alternatives yet within their own cultures, the report said. But development assistance can find and partner with local individuals and organizations working to create those alternatives.

Mahnaz Afkhami, head of the Women’s Learning Partnership, described the way her group helped 50 community organizations in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia analyze and spread the word about studies on child marriage, girls’ education, religious doctrine and human rights, creating grass-roots pressure that changed the countries’ family laws. “If the culture is respected and understood, it can be the main element in its own transformation,” she said.

The report offers other case studies and success stories, such as progress against gender violence in Latin America and against female genital cutting in sub-Saharan Africa. Cultural gate-keepers such as Buddhist monks in Cambodia and tribal leaders in Zimbabwe have been enlisted to combat stigma against HIV/AIDS testing for women, for example.

“Cultures change for better or worse, in good times and bad,” said UNFPA executive director Thoraya Obaid in a statement. “Culture is not a wall to tear down. It is a window to see through, a door to open to make greater progress for human rights.”

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