ISLAMABAD - As part of its Safe Motherhood Campaign, the World Population Foundation (WPF) Pakistan has appealed to the government to endorse the Maternal Mortality and Human Rights resolution during the ongoing session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The resolution has so far been co-sponsored by 40 countries, including Turkey and Sri Lanka and will be put forth for final adoption on June 18, 2009, said a press release issued by World Population Foundation, Pakistan. Pakistans stance towards this resolution appears rather mind boggling, especially in view of its alarmingly high Maternal Mortality Rate (276 maternal deaths per 100,000 births, the press release added. Moreover, supporting the resolution will not only help Pakistan to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 (on Maternal Mortality) but will complement two other MDGs, including Goal 3 (on Gender Equality) and Goal 4 (Child Health). However, despite ongoing efforts, Pakistan has shown itself to be a regressive participant seeking to eliminate most references to human rights within the draft resolution. Previously, Pakistan had proposed to eliminate references to human rights and had also reserved its position on certain paragraphs that represented the main thrust of the resolution - that Maternal Mortality is a human rights issue and should be treated as such. Moreover, the Human Rights Council has a role to play in ensuring that the Human Rights dimension is there in international approaches to maternal mortality. In a more recent disturbing development, Pakistan figures among the frontline nations (Egypt and Indonesia being the other two) that have threatened to make amendments, to the current draft of the Resolution - either written ones or oral - once it is presented to the plenary on Thursday With very little time remaining before the resolution is put forward for adoption, WPF and civil society Organisations appeal to the government to come forward and contribute to the existing efforts by endorsing the resolution on 18 June 2009.