Nafis Sadik, women’s health and rights champion, dies at 92

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani doctor who championed women’s health and rights and spearheaded the breakthrough action plan adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 U.N. population conference in Cairo, has died four days before her 93rd birthday. Her son, Omar Sadik, said late Monday that his mother died of natural causes at her home in New York on Sunday night. Nafis Sadik joined the U.N. Population Fund in 1971 and was appointed executive director in 1987 by then Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar. She was the first woman to head a major United Nations program that is voluntarily funded.