c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, is proposing an interfaith effort in the United States and abroad to promote education for girls, including training about sexuality.

Girls have a right to education, Campbell said, but she added that such an effort also would lessen poverty, result in lower rates of teen-age pregnancy and foster informed family planning.”It is a common-ground issue that can engage both opponents and supporters of abortion,”Campbell told a conference on women, poverty and population held in Washington Feb. 9-10.”It is a common-ground issue that can engage the support-and the political clout-of the entire religious community.” The conference,”Women, Poverty and Population: A Call to Engagement for People of Faith,”was sponsored by the Washington-based Centre for Development and Population Activities and funded by the Pew Global Stewardship Initiative.

It brought together 150 religious leaders, ethicists, representatives of secular population and development organizations, and government aid officials to develop strategies to reduce poverty, stabilize world population and protect the environment.

The conference was based on action plans adopted at the United Nations’ World Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

While advocating a wide array of programs to end poverty and slow population growth, both conferences were shadowed by fierce debates and religious differences over abortion and family planning. Although Campbell acknowledged those differences, she tried to move the debate to an area where some consensus might be found.”We have been torn apart by the brutal debate on the issue of abortion,”Campbell said, noting that the National Council of Churches does not take a stand on the question because its 32 member communions hold differing views.”But there is beginning to be a yearning to find common ground.” At the same time, she insisted education for girls must include”the full spectrum”of training, including sex education.”Religious belief must be respected,”she said,”but it must also be made clear that the full range of (educational) options should be made available. The education of the girl-child must include education about their bodies as well as their minds.” Citing United Nations figures, Campbell said women’s wages rise by 10 percent to 20 percent for each year of schooling they receive.”In Asia, Africa and Latin America, women with seven or more years of schooling have two to three children less than women with only three years of schooling,”she added.

Campbell’s proposal was greeted positively but cautiously by a spokeswoman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the nation’s leading antiabortion voices.”Girls’ education is no problem,”said Helen Alvare, director of information and planning of the bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.”But we would want to look at the context within which it is placed. There are all kinds of details that would have to be looked at.” Those details would include how sex education is handled, what information is provided, and whether it is distributed within a moral framework, she said.

Alvare noted that the Vatican, at the Beijing conference,”said it would seek to go out of its way to give women a level playing field.” Rabbi Balfour Brickner, senior rabbi emeritus of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a Reform congregation in New York, said Brown’s proposal was”a brilliant suggestion”but it would work only if religious leaders enlist the help of local clergy and congregations.”The local church is a disaster area on these issues,”Brickner said.”They’re afraid to become public and visible”on such issues as population, family planning and empowering women.

MJP END ANDERSON