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Pakistani Dr Nafees Sadiq, who led the 1994 United Nations Conference on Women’s Health and Rights and a development plan adopted by 179 countries, died four days short of his 93rd birthday, her son said on Monday morning.
Omar Sadiq said his mother died of natural causes at her home in New York on Sunday night.
Nafis Sadiq joined the United Nations Population Fund in 1971, became Assistant Executive Director in 1977, and was appointed Director-General in 1987 after the sudden death of Secretary-General Rafael Salas by Javier Pérez de Cullar. She was the first woman to head a major volunteer-funded United Nations program.
In the year In June 1990, Pérez de Couleur appointed Sadiq as Secretary-General of the Fifth United Nations Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and she became the architect of the first program of action that recognized women’s rights. Control their reproductive and sexual health and choose pregnancy.
The Cairo Summit reached consensus in 2015 on a series of goals, including universal primary education in all countries – a still elusive goal – and access to secondary and tertiary education for women. It also sets goals to reduce infant and child mortality and maternal mortality and to improve access to reproductive and sexual health services, including family planning.
While the conference overturned the ban on discussing sexuality, it failed to recognize women’s right to control decisions about sex and marriage.
Natalia Khanem, current executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, called Sadiq “a proud champion of suffrage and a tireless advocate for women’s health, rights and empowerment.”
“Her bold vision and leadership in Cairo have set the world on a great path,” she said, at the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, and since 2000, the adoption of the United Nations Development Goals and the adoption of gender equality and other issues. Cairo Action Plan.
Since Cairo, Khanem said, “millions of girls and young women have grown up knowing that their bodies are theirs to shape their future.”
“The first sign of respect for women is to support their reproductive rights,” Sadiq told delegates at the Beijing Women’s Conference a year after Cairo.
“Reproductive rights include more than reproductive rights,” she said. “They include support for women in non-reproductive activities, in fact, liberating women from a system of values ​​whose only function is reproduction.”
In the year After retiring from the Public Fund in 2000, Sadiq served as Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
“She will be remembered for her significant contributions to women’s health and rights and public policies, and her tireless efforts to combat HIV/AIDS,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Sadiq said in a statement. “She consistently mentions the importance of addressing women’s needs and directly involving women in development policy formulation and implementation, which she believes is particularly important for public policies and programs.”
Born in Jaunpur in British-ruled India, Nafees Sadiq was the daughter of Iffat Ara and Muhammad Shoaib, the former finance minister of Pakistan. After receiving her medical degree from Dow Medical College, Karachi, she began working in the women’s and children’s wards of Pakistan Army Hospitals from 1954 to 1963. The following year, she was appointed head of the health department of the State Planning Commission.
In the year In 1966, Sadiq joined the Central Family Planning Council of Pakistan, the government agency responsible for running the national family planning program. In 1970, she was promoted to Director General.
She also practiced obstetrics and gynecology at Baltimore City Hospital and continued her medical education at Johns Hopkins University.
Sadiq is survived by her five children, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Omar Sadiq said: “Mom loved how she lived: wide open, welcoming, wonderful, generous beyond belief, gracious and giving – always and in every way. Our house wasn’t big, but Mom always found a way to make it seem limitless and somehow accommodated anyone who needed a bed, couch, food, or family.
“She transcends age and time and is loved like little children by people far older than her – because they know her heart.” She gets more in a day than most of us probably do in a year – she has no competition and she was never competitive.
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