In May, the United Nations International Children’s’ Fund announced it will be ending its annual Halloween collection drive. UNICEF spokesperson Evelyne Guindon said the collection of coins by schoolchildren, which had been a feature of Canadian life for five decades, was costing more money than it was worth, but that “alternatives” were being considered.

UNICEF Canada is coming back with “Trick or Treat for UNICEF,” a program for schools to encourage children to become involved in the abortion-promoting group. yhkiuocwnucvmuevayrklxtpayhkiuocwnucvmuevayrklxtpa

UNICEF Canada’s website says, “Our vision is to build an enhanced partnership with schools and provide more meaningful participation and educational opportunities for children.”

The plan is to extend the fundraising through the schools for the entire month of October. “Instead of students collecting change in the UNICEF box on Halloween night, schools will receive fundraising kits that can be used anytime during the month of October.”

Pro-life advocates have campaigned for years against the organization’s dedication to the abortion philosophy, calling on it to return to its original vision. In 2002, Joe Woodard, writing in the Calgary Herald, revealed that the organization had been transformed into just another branch office for the anti-life and anti-family policies of the UN. Woodard wrote, “This trend was codified in the 1998 declaration in Geneva of a partnership of the Children’s Fund, World Health Organization and UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). That partnership – the Co-Ordinating Committee on Health – aligned UNICEF with UNFPA’s major partner agency, International Planned Parenthood, which ranks second only to the Chinese government in the volume of abortions it provides.”

In the years following the Second World War, the group was founded to bring much-needed material aid to children, including to the thousands of orphans left destitute after the war. But since the 1970s, UNICEF has shifted its focus to promote the UN’s population control agenda, including abortion and contraceptives for children and young people, and sex education under the auspices of “family planning” and “reproductive rights.”

In 1997, the Catholic School board of Toronto discontinued its support for UNICEF and Campaign Life Coalition convinced a number of Toronto’s Catholic schools to introduce a similar box to collect funds for the local women’s crisis pregnancy centre, Aid to Women.

In 1996, the Vatican announced that, because of UNICEF’s abortion advocacy, it would cancel its token $2,000 annual donation to the organization.

A version of this article originally appeared on LifeSiteNews.com June 20 and is reprinted with permission.