plan to destroy<\/a> a massive stockpile of contraceptives for women as part of its rollback on foreign aid.<\/p>\nIn an interview on Friday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said the stockpile was mostly bound for sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The Trump administration confirmed last month that it planned to destroy the supplies, which are unexpired and had been purchased by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) under former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue through diplomatic channels to vigorously advocate against such waste,\u201d Prevot told the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency.<\/p>\n
The stockpile is estimated to be worth about $10m. It includes implants and intrauterine devices, long cornerstones for the humanitarian community\u2019s birth control drives.<\/p>\n
Prevot said a portion of the supplies had already been moved from their original warehouse and were being kept in poor storage conditions.<\/p>\n
The Belgian diplomat also doused reports that suggested the contraceptives had been sent to France for incineration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether here at the US Embassy or directly in Washington, we have intervened to say, \u2018OK, you are changing your policy. We regret it, but please at least allow what has already been purchased to reach the appropriate recipients,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For its part, Flanders, the self-governing, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium, told the Reuters news agency that the contraceptives are currently being stored in a warehouse in Geel, a municipality in the province of Antwerp.<\/p>\n
Even if the supplies were sent to another country, they could not be incinerated without a \u201cformal derogation\u201d from the region\u2019s ban on destroying medical waste, the Flemish spokesperson explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo date, we have not received any such request,\u201d the spokesperson said, adding the Flemish government was open to engaging with US authorities on the matter.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has overseen a massive overhaul of US foreign aid since taking office in January. That has included dismantling USAID and cleaving billions of dollars in humanitarian funding.<\/p>\n
As a result of the US aid cuts, humanitarian organisations and United Nations officials have warned of shortages in critical supplies used to address hunger, staunch disease and prevent unwanted pregnancies.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked<\/a> the Trump administration from allowing $4.9bn in congressionally approved aid funding to expire without being spent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has confirmed it plans to destroy the already purchased supplies, preventing their distribution. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[2740,1789,299,105,12,49,978,286,659,16199],"class_list":{"0":"post-400831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-us-canada","16":"tag-usa","17":"tag-womens-rights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115153514516495363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}