Women’s lives are considered less important. Why else would the world allow over 560,000 women to die in pregnancy and childbirth every year?
Women around the world have had to struggle for decades, for centuries, to achieve equal rights and to achieve the human rights every man and woman deserves. And while the struggle has resulted in many positive steps forward, there are still areas where women are considered less-than their male counterparts.
Their lives are considered less important. Why else would the world allow over 560,000 women to die in pregnancy and childbirth every year? I often think, “If it were men who got pregnant, men who laid on steel delivery tables every day, who bled and hemorrhaged and died… would governments be standing idly by?”
The truth is: maternal health is a human right. The right of all women to quality health care must be ensured to prevent the deluge of avoidable maternal deaths and injuries that happen every day.
Maternal health care must be available, accessible, and of high quality. When countries fail to provide such care, it is a violation of women’s rights to life, health, equality, and non-discrimination.
Women also have a right to make informed and voluntary reproductive health decisions based on accurate information; to prevent unintended pregnancies; to be free from gender-based discrimination and violence; to have access to HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, and care; and to participate in the planning and implementation of polices that make pregnancy and childbirth safer. All women are entitled to the care they need to survive pregnancy and childbirth. Yet huge disparities exist between the rich and poor.
In Canada, where education, family planning, and health care services are widely available to all, one out of 11,000 women dies from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. In Niger, where poverty and a shattered health care system are combined with a high fertility rate, pregnancy-related causes will kill one of every seven women. Is this fair? Is this right?
Governments have an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill women’s health. They have an obligation to take action to prevent maternal deaths. Yet too many governments are doing too little to save the lives of women and mothers.
It’s time to put these governing bodies on notice that we will not watch silently as women die and their rights are consistently violated. Download a copy of the Women Deliver advocacy tool, “Focus on 5: Women’s Health and the MDGs,” and join us in the fight for safe pregnancies and childbirths around the world. Join us in the fight for women’s rights.
About
Janna Oberdorf is currently the Communications Manager at Women Deliver, an advocacy organization working to improve maternal health around the world.
Thanks for the comment Tanya. I'm glad you found the Focus on 5 cards useful, and I'm glad you disseminated them to colleagues. We hope that we can all use these cards to share the same message and really have a unified call for improved maternal health.
Also, expect the Spanish translation of the cards early next year!
First of all, thank you for your insightful and passionate blog on the ever-growing crisis of poor health care for women and girls, especially those in developing countries. I also thoroughly enjoyed your wit and awareness of a woman’s place in many societies; there is no doubt that, “If it were men who got pregnant, men who laid on steel delivery tables every day, who bled and hemorrhaged and died...”, governments would not stand idly by. Having worked in parts of the world where health care is a privilege, not a basic human right of the poor, I too, want to see improvements globally in the area of health care systems. Despite the fact that over 560,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth annually, the problem has yet to be seriously addressed by world leaders. Lip service and words on paper alone will not solve this preventable condition. In the United States, our government is working feverishly towards developing a plan to implement Universal Health Care. During 2007-08, one out of three Americans at some point did not have health care, which comes to 86.7 million uninsured Americans over the past two years. Although most are in favor of some form of health care system, many are still recovering from the shell-shock of its $1.5 trillion price tag. While I commend you for your efforts to combat this issue, your assertion that, “Governments have an obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill women’s health,” requires a deeper look at how these “rights” will be realized through financial investments (whether they are allocated by the country itself, or if donations and investments are needed from abroad). I have carefully read over the MDGs, focusing primarily on Goal 5; what I find to be problematic is the “castle-in-the-sky” assumptions that developing countries will simply comply to a higher standard of health care, when they are financially struggling themselves without any tangible means to address this problem effectively. Currently in India, the lack of adequate health care during childbirth is a possible death sentence for women who have complications. The U.S. by international standards is a developed nation with a population of 300 million, how then can a country like India even begin to tackle this crisis with over a billion people? From my perspective, there needs to be a continued grassroots effort, such as those provided by Doctors Without Borders, as well as government involvement to address health care issues on a national level. Additionally, the U.N. must establish firmer guidelines with measurable milestones that nations have to meet in order to remain in good standing. All bark and no bite has never worked to ensure progress or improvements. After reading your post, I am eager to hear your ideas and possible solutions to repairing the current state of health care. Although statistically every minute of every day, a woman loses her life in childbirth, within that time frame is also the opportunity for real change to begin. What should our first responsible step be?
Tanie - my response to your comment comes straight from our Focus on 5 briefing cards. We believe that there are 4 steps governments need to take to tackle this problem properly. It has to be combination of financial investment AND political will to create programs that affect change.
1. Increase investment in maternal, newborn, and reproductive health over current funding levels
by an additional US$10 billion in 2010, increasing annually to an additional US$20 billion in 2015.
2. Strengthen health systems for sustaining and scaling-up critical health interventions, and addressing serious gaps including 1.1 million health care professionals (midwives, nurses, doctors, and specialists) and managers by 2015.
3. Strengthen maternal, newborn, and reproductive health programmes and institutions, and ensure that information and services are available and sensitive to and respectful of women, especially poor and marginalised women.
4. Develop monitoring and accountability mechanisms and channels for community engagement
that address wider socio-economic, political, and cultural barriers to maternal and newborn health
care, and help improve policies and programmes.
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Monday 19th October, 2009, 7:02pm
Another great post Janna.
Have downloaded the toolkit - an outstanding resource, I have subsequently shared it with colleagues who work with women and in the area of gender equality.
Thank-you for highlighting an important issue, and for providing tangible solutions and approaches to achieving the 5th MDG.
Tanya Rumble