Jesse Helms' Religious Bigotry - No Reproductive Health Information for Vodouisants


Published Monday, March 15, 1999, in the Miami Herald
U.S. subsidizing witchcraft, Helms complains

DON BOHNING
Herald Staff Writer

Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., is accusing the U.S. Agency for International Development of subsidizing witchcraft in Haiti -- and he wants it stopped.

Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a Feb. 8 letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that the committee had spent a lot of time recently reviewing U.S. aid programs to Haiti in light of ``President [Rene] Preval's most recent lurch backward toward dictatorship.'' He cited in particular some population control efforts of which, he said, it's ``no secret that these programs are far too often wrongheaded and wasteful.'' Still, he added, ``if the administration insists on funding these programs I shall not stand in the way so long as you agree to the following conditions'': That no funds go to any affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in Haiti, including the local PROFAMIL organization. That no funds be provided ``directly or indirectly to any group whose programs include producing material intended to be used in a voodoo ceremony.''

Helms cited as the basis for his concern a recent exchange between U.S. AID and the Foreign Relations Committee, in which AID was asked if it provided ``any assistance to any group, like IPPF's affiliate PROFAMIL, which, according to IPPF's 1995 Annual Report, undertook `a campaign to reach voodoo followers with sexual and reproductive health information . . . by performing short song-prayers about STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] and the benefits of family planning during voodoo ceremonies.' '

AID acknowledged providing $295,000 from April 1998 to March 1999 to PROFAMIL. The agency said many AID ``partners and implementing organizations use this important social network [voodoo ceremonies] as the medium for disseminating health sector messages and information.'' That means, said Helms, that AID ``is funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft.''

AID defended its family planning programs as ``very successful'' in what is the hemisphere's most densely populated country but agreed to Helms' conditions.


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