Japanese feminist, Colombian group share U.N. award

Press, 24 February 1988, Page 15

Japanese feminist, Colombian group share U.N. award

NZPA-Reuter New York A 91-year-old Japanese feminist, Shizue Kato, and a private family planning group in Colombia, Profamilia, have been named as joint winners of the 1988 U.N. Population Award. The prize, which includes a diploma, a gold medal and SUSIO,OOO (5NZ16.500) for each recipient, has been presented annually since 1983 for outstanding contributions to increasing the awareness of population questions and to their solutions. Kato has spent nearly 70 years battling to im-

prove the status of women in Japan and family planning. She was arrested and jailed in 1937 because of her activities. As the first woman elected to Parliament after World War II she sponsored a bill permitting doctors to give advice on contraception and is credited with helping restrain rapid population growth in post-war Japan. Kato, president of the Family Planning Federation of Japan, served in the Japanese Diet for 29 years. She remains active and is expected to travel to New York some

time in late June for the award ceremony, according to a U.N. official. Profamilia (Associacion po Bienestar de la Familia Colombiana) is one of the leading family planning organisations in Latin America and was chosen for the effectiveness of its programme over the past 20 years. Since Profamilia began, use of contraceptives among Colombian married women of reproductive age has risen from 10 per cent to 65 per cent, the United Nations said.