‘Population Policy Development and Human Rights’

A two-day Colloquium on ‘Population Policy - Development and Human Rights’ organized by the National Human Rights Commission, The Department of Family Welfare (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was inaugurated here today. In his inaugural speech, the Minister for Health and Family Welfare Shri Shatrughan Sinha spoke in great length about the population policy in the country and said, The validity and sanction of any policy or legislation has to be rooted in the gamut of human rights it seeks to protect or promote. The Family Welfare Programme in India is voluntary and promotive in nature. The National Population Policy (NPP) aims at providing the widest range of services without any form of coercion. He added that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was impressing upon State Governments ‘to make enhanced investments in human beings for improving the quality of life.’



Coming down heavily on States, which have framed population policies, which were contrary to the National Population Policy, the Minister said that while the NPP did not provide for any individual incentives or disincentives, because these tend to hit the poor, the hardest, some States had framed policies that did not reflect the objectives of the NPP in its true spirit.





In his speech, the Minister also called for upholding the right of privacy and confidentiality of the woman, the right of woman to decide when and how many children she will bear, right to information and prior consent for the treatment proposed and the right to be medically examined in a dignified and responsible manner.

Talking about a code of ethical practices of medical practioners, he said that technology should not be misused for practices like sex selection as this leads to creation of social imbalances. It is also wrong that this practice is clothed by a Rights argument stating that women have a right to choose the sex of child. He argued that no woman, given a choice, would want to abort of female foetous willingly.





Delivering the presidential address, Justice J.S. Verma, Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission called for a rights based dialogue on the implementation of the National Population Policy without further avoidable delay. He said that linkage between Human Development and Human Rights has been established. The population policy must be consistent with it and must promote both human development and human rights.





Quoting Article 39(f) of the Indian Constitution, he said ‘that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity’. In this context he argued how do you punished the third child and deprived him of his rights specially in a country where women have no say in the matter of child bearing.





Speaking about coercive population control methods, the Chairperson said that such methods are not part of the NPP. However, some States in their policies appear to deviate and adopt disincentives and attain penalties too. These disincentives are violative of the constitutional guarantees of the rights of women and children. He lauded the assurances given by the Minister of Health and Family Welfare about a non-coercive population policy.





The Chairperson called for rights based experience to review the State policies specially those of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Haryana. Uniform standards consistent with the NPP are necessary to achieve the object and to prevent the exercise of population control from becoming counter productive. ‘The ‘means’, he said, should be as important as the ‘end’.