UNFPA presents award to Thai condom king

BANGKOK, July 11 (TNA) -- Mechai Viravaidya, a birth-control campaigner, received an honorary award from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on the occasion of the World Population Day. To mark this year’s World Population Day, which is annually observed on July 11, UNFPA gave special attention to family planning. As a result, UNFPA took this opportunity to award Mechai, aka “The Condom King” or “Mr Condom”, who advocates family planning and birth control in the country. The UN organization said Mechai’s contributions help save millions of Thais from sexually transmitted diseases and turn Thailand into a role model for family planning promotion among developing countries. UNFPA also stressed that family planning is an effective tool for country’s development and livelihood improvement. It added that although the number of world’s population using birth control doubled over the past 50 years, more than 200 million women still had unsafe contraceptive methods. Also, some of them were prevented from using birth control due to religious opposition. UNFPA therefore urged governments to address the problems, so all women can adopt family planning, which after all could lead to achievement of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals. (TNA)