Nafees Sadiq, a Pakistani physician who advocated girls’s well being and rights and led the breakthrough motion plan adopted by 179 nations on the 1994 United Nations Population Conference, died 4 days earlier than her 93rd birthday. The son mentioned late Monday night time.
Omar Sadiq mentioned his mom died of pure causes at her house in New York on Sunday night time.
Nafees Sadiq joined the United Nations Population Fund in 1971, grew to become its assistant government director in 1977, and was appointed government director in 1987 by then-Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuellar following the sudden dying of its chief, Rafael Salas. She was the primary lady to go a significant United Nations program, which is funded voluntarily.
In June 1990, Perez de Cuellar appointed Sadiq because the fifth Secretary-General of the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and she or he grew to become the architect of his unprecedented program of motion, which acknowledged for the primary time that girls had rights. controlling their reproductive and sexual well being and selecting whether or not or to not grow to be pregnant.
The Cairo Conference reached a consensus on a spread of objectives by 2015, together with common major schooling in all nations – a objective that has nonetheless not been met – and wider entry for ladies to secondary and better schooling. It additionally set objectives of lowering toddler and youngster mortality and maternal mortality, and offering entry to reproductive and sexual well being companies, together with household planning.
File picture of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz chatting with UNAID Special Representative for Asia Pacific Nafees Sadiq through the inaugural session of the primary Asia/Pacific Women, Girl and HIV/AIDS Best Practices Conference, in Islamabad. (AP)
While the conference broke a taboo on discussing sexuality, it stopped acknowledging that girls have the best to have intercourse and management choices about whether or not to marry.
Natalia Kanem, the present government director of the United Nations Population Fund, referred to as Sadiq “a proud champion of choice and a tireless advocate for women’s health, rights and empowerment”.
“Her bold vision and leadership in Cairo set the world on an ambitious path,” she mentioned, a journey she continued on the 1995 UN Women’s Conference in Beijing and since 2000 together with her adoption of the United Nations Development Goals which embrace gender equality. And there are lots of points concerned. Cairo Program of Action.
Since Cairo, Kanem mentioned, “millions of girls and young women have grown up knowing that their bodies are theirs, and their future is to be shaped.”
At the Beijing Women’s Conference a yr after Cairo, Sadiq advised delegates: “The first mark of respect for women is support for their reproductive rights”. “Reproductive rights include more than the right to reproduce,” she mentioned. “They include support for women in activities other than reproduction, actually liberating women from a system of values ​​that insists that reproduction is their only function.”
After retirement from the Population Fund in 2000, Sadiq served as Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres mentioned Sadiq shall be remembered “for his significant contributions to women’s health and rights and population policies, and for his tireless efforts to combat HIV/AIDS”. “She consistently drew attention to the importance of meeting women’s needs, and directly involved women in the making and running of development policy, which she believed was particularly important for population policies and programs. “
Born in Jaunpur, British-ruled India, Nafees Sadiq was the daughter of Iffat Ara and former Finance Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Shoaib. After receiving her medical diploma from Dow Medical College in Karachi, she started working within the girls’s and kids’s wards in hospitals of the Pakistani Armed Forces from 1954 to 1963. The following yr he was appointed head of the well being part of the Government Planning Commission.
In 1966, Sadiq joined the Pakistan Central Family Planning Council, the federal government company accountable for working the nationwide household planning programme. She grew to become its Director General in 1970. She additionally did an internship in Gynecology and Obstetrics at City Hospital in Baltimore and continued her medical schooling at Johns Hopkins University.
Sadiq is survived by his 5 kids, 10 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
Omar Sadiq mentioned, “Mommy loved how she lived: wide open, welcoming, wonderful, generous beyond belief, kind and giving – giving always and in all ways.” “Our house wasn’t huge, but Mom always found a way to make it look limitless and she somehow managed to accommodate a bed, couch, food, or anyone the family needed.”
“She transcended age and time and was as beloved by people much older than her as by very young children – because they knew her heart,” he mentioned. “She fits more in a day than most of us probably do in a year — she was matchless and she was unmatched.”
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
