As American pro-life activists lead a boycott campaign on the Girl Scouts, the Girl Guides of Canada has been caught partnering with and supporting organizations that actively promote contraception and abortion as empowering to girls.

Promising to be “true to myself” and to “take action for a better world” Girl Guide members have been sent as youth representatives to pro-abortion conferences in the developing world and to a leadership training camp run by a pro-abortion-and-contraception organization. They have worked for organizations promoting “reproductive health” in poor countries.

Critics have called the revelation “appalling” and a “betrayal” of women.

Girl Guides of Canada sent youth representatives to the 2013 Women Deliver conference in Malaysia, a global event where the world’s leading abortion and population-control advocates – including Microsoft billionaire Melinda Gates; abortionist LeRoy Carhart; Catholics for a Free Choice founder Frances Kissling; and Princeton infanticide advocate Peter Singer – made presentations.

“Participating in the conference also allowed me to grow as a human being and learn to appreciate many of the things I take for granted on a daily basis,” wrote Rukaiyah Lakkadghatwala, a Girl Guide for 11 years, on the GirlGuidesCAN blog. “Attending the conference also allowed me to fully appreciate how the Girl Guides of Canada supports our growth and development into strong women.”

Grade 11 student Carly Checholik said she was glad to be chosen as a representative since she has “been a fan of what Women Deliver stands for a few years now.”

Checholik said her “highlight” from the conference was when a panel addressed her concerns about the “education of young girls when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights.”

Last year Girl Guides of Canada sent girls to a leadership training camp near Montreal called Young Women’s Leadership Program run by Girls Action Foundation, an organization that promotes homosexuality, oral sex, anal sex, lesbian “humping,” sex toys, abortion, and contraception.

In 2012, Girl Guides from Nova Scotia ages 9-17 sewed reusable sanitary pads for the Jamii Foundation, an organization that teaches children in Kenya about “reproductive health,” “contraceptives,” and “healthy relationships.”

Life and family leaders point out that ‘reproductive health’ is generally synonymous with sex education that emphasizes non-marital sex, the promotion of greater access to abortion, and the promotion of contraception.

Among Girl Guides of Canada partners is Plan International, an organization with an outreach program for girls called “Because I am a Girl” that equates sexual health for girls with easy access to abortion and contraception.

“(It’s about) having control over your own body when it comes to having sex and having children,” the group states on its website for teens.

Last year a Plan International delegate to the UN Human Rights Council urged that children and adolescents in the third world should receive “comprehensive sexual education…as part of the school curriculum” to advance the goal of achieving “reproductive health.”

Girl Guides of Canada is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), an international organization that has as part of its mandate to “promote access to education and information about sexual and reproductive health.”

“Reproductive health” is a common theme on WAGGGS’ website. “The World Association’s way of working enables girls and young women to talk openly about issues such as sexual and reproductive health among their peers and in a safe environment,” WAGGGS says about “prevent (ing) adolescent pregnancy,” its third of seven “key messages” to girls worldwide.

In 2010 WAGGGS boasted that it had sent a young female delegate to advocate for “accessible, affordable and safe abortions” at the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

WAGGGS has partnered with UN agencies such as UNFPA, UNICEF, and UNAIDS, all known for promoting abortion, comprehensive sexuality education, and “sexual rights.”

Alissa Golob of Campaign Life Coalition Youth told LifeSiteNews.com that Girl Guides has “betrayed” girls across the country by “partnering with and supporting organizations that promote the exploitation of women and girls by means of contraception and abortion.”

“Contraception strips a girl of one of her greatest and most precious gifts – her fertility. It teaches her to value herself in terms of sexual availability. Is it really ‘pro-woman’ for girls to be taught to be objectified like that?”

Golob said, “Girl Guides should instead be teaching girls to embrace their fertility, not reject it.”

Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women of Canada, called the Girl Guide link to contraception and abortion “appalling.” She told LifeSiteNews.com, “instead of teaching young women to be the leaders of tomorrow, Girl Guides is teaching them to be the sex-objects of tomorrow.”

Landolt, who belonged to the Girl Guides as a little girl, wondered, “who’s guiding the Guides?” She said, “they seem to have lost their way in everything that Girl Guides is supposed to be about – building character and being future citizens.”

Girl Guides of Canada did not respond to LifeSiteNews.com’s questions by press time asking what a scouting organization is doing pushing contraception and abortion on its girls.

 A longer version of this article originally appeared Feb. 14, 2014 at LifeSiteNews.com and is used with permission.