For guts combined with grace, Thoraya Obaid has few rivals. A proud Saudi Muslim, she leads what is probably the United Nations' most controversial agency, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – which addresses women's reproductive health. Recently she was the speaker at the Washington National Cathedral's Sunday Forum, arguing that religious leaders must address the sorry state of women in much of the developing world.
She even dared utter the words "unsafe abortion." She wanted this issue, usually avoided in polite discussion, front and center because the suffering and loss of life it causes women the world over need to be addressed forthrightly. The Cathedral's dean (who moderated her talk), she said, told her as they moved towards the podium that those words had probably never been uttered before inside the Cathedral's hallowed walls.
Ms. Obaid reels off heart-rending statistics about what women suffer – how many still die each day in childbirth, how many girls are taken out of school, or married without a say before they are 14, and on and on. She also exudes confidence that things can change. Her experience convinces her that it can be done.
Speaking in the grand nave of the Cathedral, her core message was that these stories belong at the very heart of religious discourse and action. Religious leaders can and sometimes do stand in the way of action. But they also can galvanize leaders and communities to act.
Ms. Obaid is often at the center of the tempests that surround women's reproductive health issues, like sex education, condom distribution, and abortion. UNFPA comes under fire for some programs it supports but much more, and unjustly, for ones it does not – in particular, it is sometimes blamed for the coercive elements of China's one-child policy, including abortion. In fact, UNFPA's role in China is small and largely technical.
She made clear her conviction that religious leaders must play a central part in improving girls' lives. She knows that culture is at the heart of the problem. And no one has more insight and influence on the culture than religious leaders.
Ms. Obaid has thus led UNFPA to reach out to religious communities, at the community level but also globally. She is convinced that it is possible to respect the values and beliefs that each faith tradition holds but at the same time to value and respect common principles. She has a slew of stories about creative cooperation, in Honduras, Kenya, the Philippines, and Iran. In all these cases initial hesitation about UNFPA programs from religious communities has been overcome. Groups found common concerns in their desire to better the lot of women and families and found ways to make it happen.
Ms. Obaid's speech was a grand beginning to the two-day â€Breakthrough Summit†at the Cathedral. She exemplifies what it will take to break through the preconceptions, bitterness, and anger that have turned women's reproductive health into a dangerous third rail in development policy. If anyone can do it, she can.
