UNFPA for more say of women in health matters

From Our Correspondent

The latest State of the World Population report released by United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) recently presented a horrific picture of the condition of women in the developing world. Eight million unwanted pregnancies, 20 million unsafe abortions, and five lakh maternal deaths could be avoided worldwide if women had a say in matters related to reproductive health, says the report. At the same time, the report seems to have endorsed the long cherished values of Indian life. It says: "Gender issues are not the same as women issues. Understanding gender means understanding opportunities, constraints and the impact of change as they affect both women and men. It is increasingly understood that partnership between women and men is the basis for strong families and viable societies in a rapidly changing world." The report also says that HIV/AIDS has assumed alarming proportions in the developing world.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is now the leading cause of death in Africa and the fourth most common cause of death worldwide. At the end of the 1999, 34.3 million men, women and children are living with HIV or AIDS, 5.4 million are newly infected that year, and 18.8 million had already died from the disease. More than 95 per cent of all HIV-infected people live in the developing world. Violence against women also takes a toll on their health, well being and social status, according to the report, which says gender inequality that affects human rights and development priorities, demands urgent attention. Inadequate attention to pregnancy and childbirth, poor nutrition, violence perpetrated in many forms, poverty and social discrimination make condition of women across the world worse. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are leading cause of death and disability for women aged 15-49 in most developing nations.

Women in these countries are about 30 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than those in developed countries. Ninety-nine per cent of the five lakh maternal deaths annually are in developing countries, where complications of pregnancy kill one in every 48 women. Each year about 50 million such complications lead to long-term illness or disability. Only 53 per cent of deliveries in developing countries take place with a skilled birth-attendant doctor, nurse or midwife. If women in these countries had adequate access to family planning methods to have a control on the number of children they have, the total fertility rate in many countries would fall by one-third, the UNFPA report points out. Anaemia, often result of poor nutrition, affects 40-60 per cent of women in developing countries, excluding China, says the report. At least one in every three women worldwide is beaten or abused in some other way — most often by someone known to her, including her husband. One woman in four is abused during pregnancy, reveals the report highlighting the importance of gender equality in population control.