The Canadian government announced this week its plans to donate another $200 million to advance “comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights” in Africa. $48 million of this funding will go directly to International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) over several years, which promises to use the money in “delivering comprehensive sexuality education to young people, [and] providing access to person-centred safe and legal abortion care, including post-abortion care.”
IPPF has been the subject of at least one investigation and has had a long term relationship with the China Family Planning Association. In 2009, then-director-general of IPPF, Gill Greer, praised China’s coercive “population control policy” as “very conducive to China’s development in various aspects such as economy, education and health care services.”
Obianuju Ekeocha, a Nigerian born pro-life activist, Catholic founder of Culture of Life Africa, biomedical scientist, and author of the 2018 book, “Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism in the Twenty-First Century,” is particularly concerned about Canada’s trajectory in providing this funding.
Ekeocha has urged Canadians to “stop funding feminist ideological colonization” and using its resources in “persuading people across Africa to accept abortion.”
In November 2017, Ekeocha stated at a British conference that “everybody’s talking about racism and white supremacy,” and called it “painful” to see “ideological supremacy that is sanctioned and acceptable and philanthropic racism that is admired and applauded.” She added, “I think they are trying to solve poverty and end poverty by eradicating the poor themselves or by stopping them from having another generation of children.”
In a 2024 Macdonald-Laurier Institute article (subtitled “Canadians show up to lecture, not listen, as evidenced by the Trudeau government’s foreign policy and coercive ‘feminist’ aid”), Ekeocha and a colleague reminded Canadian policy makers that “Respectful consultation should characterize Canada’s large aid program in Africa. People in most African countries profess respect for the sanctity of life and the primacy of the family, something confirmed by opinion polls, public commentary and legislation.”
Despite this, Canada prefers to spend resources convincing Africans to accept the intentional killing of preborn children.
