At the NGO Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Development conference in Berlin last week, we met to discuss the Plan of Action put forth 15 years ago. While there are significant shortfalls in several areas, progress has been made in others. For example, there is more equity in education today than there was 15 years ago.
However, in Cairo there was little, if any, discussion that more than one billion children would be reaching adolescence and sexual maturity during the 20 years in which the Plan of Action would be undertaken.
It’s not just an interesting demographic trend. Women ages 15 to 19 are twice as likely to die complications of pregnancy and childbirth as older women. Currently, 5,000 young people age 15–24 become infected with HIV every day – almost two million new infections each year.
In Berlin, one-third of the attendees are under the age of 30 – many of them from economically developing countries - and they’re serious about the need for (and their commitment to) providing youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. Over dinner the first night I spoke to a Pakistani women in her early 20s who works with an HIV prevention program in Peshwar, a seriously politically destabilized area. That takes dedication and some bravery.
In most parts of the world, young people’s access to family planning and HIV prevention programs is limited by poverty and access. Further, where there are programs, they are often not designed with young people in mind. I’m impressed and gratified by the dedication of so many of them who are attending this conference to push for policies that change that reality.
]]>As a country, we view U.S. assistance for global women's heath programs as important, but not necessary to our own interests. This is because we have somehow divorced "people" from foreign policy; it is as if a small group of people in power in other countries generate all the issues that must be addressed by our government. And further, we have separated "women" from the larger body of citizens. Why address merely women's issues when we can address a nation's issues?
It's true that women have particular needs that are distinctly different than the needs of an entire population. Everybody needs clean water; yet only women can die from childbirth. Also, the needs of women are so intrinsically tied up in the needs of families, communities and nations that it's absurd to consider "women's issues" apart. Women are the fabric of a nation. It is ridiculous to think that women should be invisible when we deal with poverty alleviation, conflict, global relief and environmental pressures, all of which lend themselves to peace and stability (or a lack thereof). Women are disproportionately affected by all these calamities. Nations can only develop economically so far without the participation of half of their citizens.
But we can't expect women to be a significant part of any solution if they exist in a society in which it is considered easier and cheaper to get a new wife than to save the one who is hemorrhaging from childbirth. So we can't say that women's health is what we will get to after we have a handle on education. Because in the society I've described, the girls aren't going to school any time soon.
For the U.S. to be a significant part of the solution that elevates the status of women and all that such progress entails, our foreign policy has to start dealing with the realities of women's lives instead of attempting to legislate morality. Just about everybody agrees the rate at which women around the world die from preventable causes of pregnancy and childbirth is a tragedy. But the fact is that keeping women alive includes contraception. In much of the world, contraception actually saves women's lives by allowing girls to delay childbearing and by permitting undernourished women to space their children. A leader may debate the morality of contraception in his or her private views, but those views will eventually crash into the morality of letting hundreds of thousands of women die needlessly. It's best to leave that philosophical debate to the person whose life hangs in the balance.
We can enter into inane debates on condom use as well, or we can acknowledge that new HIV/AIDS infections increasingly occur to young, married girls and our international assistance can stop blocking efforts to distribute condoms as a matter of survival.
These issues form a core part of our foreign policy as much as oil, war and trade. The United States supports global women's health, but all of it goes out with our government's stamp of morality (such as a policy that requires one-third of all PEPFAR HIV prevention funds to be spent on abstinence-only programs) and is our foreign policy. American foreign policy currently provides no money for multilateral approaches to global women's health because the Bush Administration, in its most egregious of decisions, withheld the U.S. contribution to UNFPA for seven years. Not only does this funding need to be restored, but we need to do far more.
The next President will take
office in a world where a woman dies every
minute from preventable complications of pregnancy and childbearing, where 600 million women are illiterate,
where 82 million girls living in low-income countries will be married
by the time they turn 18, where 6,800 new cases of HIV occur every day.
No candidate for President of the United States has the luxury of naïveté as to what these statistics mean to the world. Rampant poverty and discrimination against women across much of the globe will hinder all our efforts to create a more and more prosperous, technologically savvy and environmentally stable world.
In Friday's debate, questions about foreign policy will likely be parsed into individual issues in order for the candidates to answer in the time allotted. It would be more helpful for Americans to hear each candidate's philosophical approach to foreign policy. Let's hope our next President is both grounded and visionary enough to recognize that women are part of the whole, that when we are smart about it, we can be part of the progress in which societies evolve to the point where women participate economically and politically. We Americans would be far better off if we invested in the world's women. ]]>Once again I find myself in the unexpected position of complimenting an evangelical leader, as I did last November, when I expressed cautious optimism for Bill Hybel's statement that the evangelical community was interested in the plight of women in the developing world.
Setting aside any opinion I may have about the candidates' first joint appearance being in a church, I thought Rick Warren produced an excellent forum for all of us to learn more about the candidates for President. Not only were his questions thoughtful and insightful, but he also made a valiant attempt to encourage the candidates to answer fully and "off message." And, perhaps most shockingly in this day and age, he filled the church with polite supporters of both candidates. In other words, he didn't stack the deck.
Unfortunately, Warren did not ask the candidates the question I've been waiting to hear: Would you restore funding to UNFPA to assist in global efforts to promote women and reduce poverty?
To be fair, I don't know if Warren's support for the world's women extends to UNFPA or if he knows about UNFPA -- the global anchor institution for women's health and rights. However, he could have asked, "Is less than 1% of the federal budget an adequate contribution to safe motherhood programs, HIV prevention and girls' access to education around the world?"
Neither Presidential candidate has yet pledged to restore funding to UNFPA. We generated emails from our supporters to both parties asking for support to UNFPA to be included in their platforms. In a hopeful sign, the draft of the Democratic Platform includes the language: We will...reinstate funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). We will expand access to health care and nutrition for women and reduce the burden of maternal mortality. The Republic Platform has not yet been released to the public. Stay tuned . . .
In fact, it's been a pretty
good summer for UNFPA. The House Subcommittee
on Foreign Affairs allocated a $60 million contribution to UNFPA, approaching the requested $63.5 million
which represents the $40 million allocation from the FY08 budget plus
10% of the money the Bush Administration has withheld from UNFPA.
And that brings us back to the presidency. UNFPA is not on the radar screen of either candidate. If the amount of grey matter used on an issue is directly related to its cost to the taxpayers, UNFPA is never going to get a hearing. And yet we know that no economically developed nation in the world excludes the participation of half of its citizens. We know that women are the key to almost all of the advancement of nations yet to be realized. And we know for sure that promoting the health and rights of women is important to Americans. If it's important to a white, American-born male, evangelical Christian (i.e., Rick Warren) and to South Asian, naturalized American Muslim woman (i.e., me!) - who out there could possibly disagree?
The candidates for President
should support UNFPA because when women are healthy, more economically
stable and more able to participate in society, society evolves to the
benefit of all of us. As the United Nations agency that promotes women's
health and rights in more than 150 nations around the globe, UNFPA is
uniquely positioned to support the world's women.
The men who spoke with Rick
Warren Saturday night most certainly gave the impression that they would
support the notion that all people are entitled to human rights.
Before you call me crazy, remember that five years ago it would have seemed crazy that the head of an organization dedicated to women's rights and the head of an evangelical church were supporting the same thing.
We're taking out an ad in Roll Call after the conventions to show the candidates that Americans support global women's health. Please sign the ad.
]]>The brains behind marryourdaughter.com, John Ordover, was trying to call attention to early marriage in this country. So the website eloquently made his point. Now we have another tragic example.
In what has now become common b-roll footage on the news channels, Texas authorities removed 419 children from the Yearning for Zion ranch this month after a 16-year-old repeatedly called a local family violence shelter asking for help.
Court documents said: "Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice among the residents of YFZ ranch in which minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them." Because of what the documents called "pervasive pattern of indoctrinating and grooming" girls to accept marriage and motherhood at young ages, the authorities determined that all the girls were in danger of abuse.
When child marriage occurs in other parts of the world, we tend to think of it as merely a common societal practice. In Texas authorities had to physically remove children because - it is becoming clear - early marriage in the United States is typically a result of brainwashing and abuse. Why would a young girl choose to enter into a marriage with a middle-aged man if she believed she had a choice? Indeed, why would she, either here or anywhere in the world?
The very thought of what the girls at Yearning for Zion ranch in Colorado were subjected to infuriates me and taps into such a deep vein of emotion that I am at a loss for words. As the mother of a girl child, it pains me deeply to think of my daughter ever having to experience such abuse. I feel the instinctive need to protect girls less privileged than mine against predators. And then my anger stems from outrage that this could happen in a country where there are clear laws and overwhelming norms of conduct that decry such practices.
Last September I noted that teenage marriage isn't likely to become part of a national debate (though the issue of unmarried teens having sex will surely continue to stand between common sense and moralistic rants). I thought that was because, in the United States, we can't seem to grasp the fact that early marriage is not about two crazy kids in love. It is both a symptom and a cause of women's lower status and the societal problems that accompany it.
While I'm happy to say that I think that we Americans now have a sense of what early marriage really entails, I'm sorry that we had to find it in our midst for this realization to occur. I'm very sorry that so many young girls were victimized before we learned the truth.
The world over, early marriage almost always means less education, more limited opportunities and usually economic insecurity for girls. Girls who marry early also have a disproportionately higher risk of maternal death. It is all horrific.
In societies where girls are married off early, the tradition tends to continue unless some dramatic social or economic changes occur. Let's hope that we've seen that dramatic change here. Let's channel our better understanding into a deeper understanding of the societal forces that constrain women and girls everywhere. To move forward, we must all feel and understand common universal realities and have the strength to transform them for women.
]]>Once firmly established in careers that intertwine our passion and vision of life, we often spend time wondering, how do we trigger this same passion in young people, specifically college students? Frankly, they're a tough nut to crack. They're busy with their classes but also with the headiness of life's possibilities. And, often to their parent's dismay, they're often rather preoccupied with their new independence. Finally, with every book ever published and nine million blogs on their desks, these young adults can't be so easily reached through old fashioned channels like student newspapers and radio stations.
But we know that nothing touches people like personal connection. So, last year we began a contest, the Student Award for the Health and Dignity of Women. The winner goes with us to visit UNFPA-funded programs abroad and, in return, becomes a young ambassador for UNFPA on her campus and in her community. It's our hope that by taking a young American overseas, we will create a lifelong advocate for global women's health in this country.
Through this process, I've been delighted (and more than a little surprised) to learn how much many young people already know and care about women around the world. They seem to really see themselves as part of a global community. We received submissions from students all over the country. Their majors ranged from journalism to women's studies to public health. Their knowledge about social issues and their passion to address them is inspiring.
I'm delighted to announce that this year's winner is Fatima Hassan, a junior at Stanford University studying human biology. Fatima was chosen by an independent jury based on her demonstrated interest in a career dedicated to the health of women globally. A very accomplished young woman, Fatima is already involved with a Stanford-based medical project to combat fistula in Eritrea. She is President of the university's Muslim Student Awareness Network and is involved with the Women's Community Center on campus.
Academically, Fatima hopes to organize community efforts to promote alternative traditional ceremonies to replace female genital cutting, a common rite of passage, and plans to conduct research on the access of fistula patients to treatment facilities.
In her essays Fatima wrote: "Women's health is my calling...Though I have done years of personal research, books and classes don't compare to the dimensions of learning firsthand...When the President suspends funding to the principal international organization seeking universal women's health and rights, the image of the U.S. as a champion of human rights and justice is severely compromised and abrogated...Supporting UNFPA is the realization that yes, although that distant world is rife with injustices and inequities, we can do something just by internalizing their struggles..."
Fatima will join us on a trip to Uganda and Rwanda in August to meet the real women who change their communities - and the world - a little at a time. The trip includes, among other things, visits to hospital maternity clinics, HIV prevention programs and projects that reach out to sex workers.
We are delighted to contribute to Fatima's future success and to cultivate a generation of young American adults who will lead our nation toward a long-term dialogue with the world.
]]>Teen pregnancy represents the abrupt and unequivocal end of the time when all things are possible and the arrival of the cold, hard understanding that invincibility does not exist. It's the unambiguous end of "girlhood."
That's in this country (though there are certainly girls in this country who don’t believe that it’s realistic to dream big and that’s an important issue, too).
But in many societies, teen pregnancy is the desired outcome for a daughter. Once the body is ready, why wait? A girl's family arranges her marriage and she is expected to begin having children.
There's a tendency to believe that we should not be mortified because this is their culture, who are we to judge. So we may feel it's unfortunate that there are societies where poverty in general is so bad there are no dreams of space flights or cures for cancer or fairy tale love. We may even lament that in many places, girls who are not from a rarified strata of their society don't have the opportunity to complete secondary school. We may understand that the lack of participation of women is possibly the biggest factor keeping the society from developing economically. But we don't view teen pregnancies as the same travesty as we do when the teen is American. And why not?
Because this girl's life choices are limited, anyway? Because if she finishes secondary school, she will marry and have children and she will have only delayed the inevitable? Because she's married and so we believe that her passage into adulthood and motherhood is somehow smoother and safer?
Then consider this fact. Pregnancy is the leading cause of death for girls aged 15-19 worldwide.
Early marriage (which is equivalent to teen pregnancy for this argument) increases girls' risk of HIV infection (because older husbands are more likely to already be infected with the virus).
The more educated a girl, the more likely she is to space her children and fewer children leads to more economic stability for the family.
Countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that have high rates of child marriage are countries with high poverty rates, high birth rates, greater incidence of conflict and civil strife and lower levels of schooling, employment, health care. Conversely, East Asian countries like Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand that have successfully eliminated child marriage for the most part are characterized by economic growth.
Some of the biggest advocates against teen pregnancy -- Salamatou Traoré, the Honorable Joyce Banda, Dr. Myriam Conejo Maldonaldo -- never even use the phrase. Because where early marriage is common, "teen" as we know it, doesn't really exist. But "opportunity" does and for whatever reason, these women -- though they come from societies that do not expect or generally allow much from the girls -- became leaders. So they believe in the grand dreams of girls. As the mother of a 4-year-old daughter and a feminist, I know the importance of dreaming for our collective daughters. I wouldn't want that dream cut short by death or disease. So, whether we call it "early marriage" or "teenage pregnancy," let's work to give our daughters the future they deserve.
]]>Much as I wish it did, the money doesn't just sit in a bank account, waiting for a change of heart or a more supportive President. Most of it reverts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for global health and child survival programs.
The omnibus appropriations bill that passed Congress last month earmarks $40 million for UNFPA. This is a $6 million increase over last year's allocation, which is progress, except for that whole withholding problem.
USAID provides international assistance - which among other things includes contraception, safe motherhood initiatives, HIV prevention - in about 100 countries that are strategically important to the United States. For example, since the 1970s, Israel and Egypt have long been the largest recipients of U.S. aid. Not surprisingly, recently, Iraq has received a huge amount of foreign assistance from our government. Our government also invests in global health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS. (I will discuss at some other points the restrictions we place on these funds, particularly the requirement that one-third of our HIV/AIDS funds be focused on abstinence.) The theory being that the healthier a nation is and the better living standards it has, the better it is for its citizens and for us all. And the more educated the people, the better their chances of a government that recognizes human rights.
This is all very necessary and important. But here's why it's important for the United States to contribute to UNFPA in addition to all the work it does through USAID.
UNFPA works in about 150 countries based on the needs on the grounds, not the political priorities of powerful nations. So the women of Niger get international assistance because their government requests it. Why? Unselfish motivation: all people are entitled to human rights and a basic standard of living. Selfish motivation: when women are healthy, more economically stable and more able to participate in society, the society evolves to the benefit of all of us.
UNFPA's funding is very much based on this idea of global community. In 2006, Niger - the country ranked last on the economic development index - contributed $5,000, which goes into the pot with the contributions from all over the world, including countries like the Netherlands which contributed almost $70 million.
From this pot of money, UNFPA supports change from the bottom up and the top down. For example, part of the money goes to support programs created and implemented by local women to address challenges within their own community. So, in Niger, UNFPA funds Dimol, a non-profit created by Salamatou Traoré (whom I've mentioned before) to support fistula patients and prevent fistula at the community level.
That pot of money also funds UNFPA's Campaign to End Fistula which, among other things, sponsors trainings where the small number of doctors who can do fistula repair, train their peers from all over Africa and Asia.
And because UNFPA has the legitimacy of the United Nations, it can also work with governments to promote women's access to health care and to implement laws and policies that support girl's education or prevent violence against women. UNFPA is the watchdog for the world's women, ensuring that their particular needs are considered when international aid is established in the wake of a natural disaster.
As a multilateral organization, UNFPA's work is not subject to the policies of one particular country. So, for example, condom distribution is based on what the government of a country believes its people need, not what the government of the United States believes another country's citizens need.
Perhaps the best way to explain the importance of a U.S. contribution to UNFPA, even while our government contributes a much larger amount for similar programs through USAID, is UNFPA's family planning program in Iran. It is unlikely that Iran would accept a similar program funded by USAID. Most of us would agree that while we may dislike the policies of the Iranian government, we support the rights of Iranian women.
So, as we close one year with hopes and aspirations for the next, let's bring peace and prosperity by continuing to believe in women and investing in their wellbeing-universally and without bias.
]]>I call this post, "All I Want for the Holidays a Good President."
I'm more than a little bothered that this is all I want. No matter what the framers intended, we now follow a system of government that is heavily weighed toward the executive branch. The recent wrangling over the budget is just one of the many examples. The fact that the party in the majority in both the House and Senate acquiesced to most of the President's budget demands in order to avoid a veto is appalling in our system of government.
The will of the majority of both Houses of Congress doesn't get you much these days absent a veto-proof majority in Congress - which seems like something as difficult to achieve as economizing cold fusion at this point. So more than ever we need a President who understands the importance of global women's health or one that is willing to be educated.
I wish support for UNFPA could be accomplished through the legislative branch, no matter what the policy emanating from the White House is, because Congress tends to reflect the will of the people on this - which is clearly support for the world's women. But only to a point. As we've seen this week, when this President says no to women, members of Congress mostly shrug.
The omnibus bill allocates $40 million to UNFPA (a $6 million increase over recent years) and requires that, if the President defunds UNFPA as he has done for the last five years in a row, that he articulate his reasons in writing. Last spring, when the President threatened to veto the Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, this requirement was the first stipulation he listed as justification for his veto. (Crazy, I know, asking the President to explain to the American people why he makes these decisions.) So, funding for UNFPA is currently in the bill but it's a tempered victory since this President is not likely to release the funds and, it's doubtful that Congress will make much of a stink about it.
I'm not going so far as to say that the makeup of Congress is not important. However, if the next President allows global women's health to be reduced to mere politics, we'll be in for this same funding battle for 4-8 more years. But, if the next President understands global women' health to be the best hope for an end to extreme poverty and a more stable world for all of us - economically and environmentally - then maybe we can have some real leadership about the U.S. role in such a global effort.
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The only mainstream media that routinely covers the UN, Fox News, never misses a chance to rail against it. Most daily newspapers just skip coverage of UN activities altogether, except for when really terrible things happen to the UN such as yesterday's destruction of UN offices in Algeria by terrorists.
The Declaration of Human Rights affirms the equality of all people, their worth as individuals and their inherent right to freedom of speech and belief. What could be more central, more basic to the beliefs of Americans then the idea that all people are born free and have the right to their religious and political beliefs and the right to express them without fear of imprisonment?
Where would the world be without the UNDHR? What body would have the moral authority to set the standard for nations everywhere? The answer: The United Nations. The United Nations, a body whose very existence is a testament to our commonalities over our differences, came together to affirm that all cultures value human rights. Because of the global human rights standards articulated by the United Nations, we know that all societies should be moving past the point of enslaving a portion of their people, discriminating against women or killing political dissidents.
It's true that these abuses to our fellow humans continue. Darfur is probably the worst example of a massive violation of human rights, though, unfortunately, human rights violations occur in every corner of the world every day. Gone are the days when those of us who live under a Constitution that establishes our rights, could sit back and wonder if those weren't just the problems of people with different belief systems.
When the world was a larger place and we had less understanding of other societies we may have been able to say "perhaps we shouldn't impose our views on other peoples." International human rights are not about any one nation imposing its views on another. Rather, it is about our collective global belief that, by virtue of being human, we are entitled to basic rights that our governments should protect.
Most of us consider the United States as a shining example of the provision of rights to its citizens. We are not always perfect in the execution but our Constitution really is the gold standard of freedom. Of course, this gold can be muddied. The constitutional rights we recognize have been questioned as a result of our policies at Guatanamo Bay and the limited legal procedural rights we have granted other detainees. Our government's commitment to human rights has also been questioned by as a result of the Abu Ghraib and our torture policies.
And that brings me back to the United Nations, the embodiment of the concept of a world where we all take care of each other, can be the mouthpiece of enlightenment.
Next week I want to talk about that hotbed of human rights abuses, China, because it's where U.S. policy and the UN's work to promote the rights of women - through UNFPA - wreck into each other to the detriment of China's women.
]]>From the lawyers of Pakistan to the monks of Myanmar, it's been quite a year for the brave to stand up for the civil rights of the people. (You can harsh my buzz by mentioning the Russian vote this week - which is seemingly the will of the people to abdicate their rights - but why interrupt my revelry?)
You see where I'm going with this. Change must come from within. Okay, change can come from the CIA toppling a government but the results are really never good. Positive, constructive, lasting progress comes from within the society for the good of the society.
Take, for example, the status of women. Do men go around handing out opportunities to women in a society where women have no value beyond wife and mother? No, something fundamental has to change. The women have to decide that something much be different. I've referenced some shining examples in the past including Agnes Pareiyo, a Maasai woman from Kenya who believes that women should not be circumcised; Myriam Conejo Maldonaldo, a Quechua woman from Ecuador who believes that indigenous people have the same right to education and health care as everyone else; Gamilah Ghaleb Al-Sharie, a Yemeni woman and devout Muslim who does not believe that faith and family planning are mutually exclusive; and Ket Noeun, a Cambodian woman who believes that violence against women is unacceptable and that the State has a responsibility to hold its citizens to this truth.
These women have pushed their societies to change by pushing down one form of oppression against women. No matter which notion of women's inferiority they take on, the rest are bound to tumble down after. Stop genital mutilation of women and they are likely to stay in school, delay their marriage and space children, thereby increasing the family's economic stability.
These ideas - that women should crank out babies, that educating them is a waste, that violence toward wives is just the way things are - are deeply held in some places. But societies are not calcified. Societies are living, evolving entities just like the people who comprise them. And when one or a few decide to change things - if they are very passionate, persistent and, one might argue, extraordinary - societies do change.
But, to be fair, when you are powerless and you demand rights, it's huge. When you live in the West and are lucky to be amongst the majority that have a solid foundation of status and rights, the things we do to improve our lot are incremental. But that does not mean they aren't important.
We are entering the fray of a very long election year (I know, you were pretending that it's almost over). It is very important that our next President admire the bravery of women like Anges, Myriam and Ket. So please, involve yourself. Do all those little things that add up to big things. Starting with voting. It is very easy to be disenchanted with politics in this country so let me end with this:
BBC radio is celebrating their 75 anniversary by playing short segments of monumental events that the broadcast service covered over the last seven and an half decades. Last week, I was taken back to that fantastic party on top of the Berlin wall when the Germans (not Ronald Reagan) demanded that their government end the division of their people. A triumph of the human spirit over status quo.
]]>Here in the United States, we have the opportunity to be many things in addition to being mothers. A big debate rages as to whether the growing number of women who are financially able to opt out of their careers to raise their children are somehow making a very bad decision.
Such debates are a luxury of affluent societies (and, frankly, of the most affluent among us). In many countries in the world, women are wife, mother. Period. No option, no choice, virtually no way to change that.
In this society, where women still make less than men, we are nevertheless considered important to society for our contributions to the workforce, the political process and the family. Because childbirth is so safe here that we have forgotten how dangerous it actually is, we can debate the accessibility of health care for low-income women, insurance coverage of contraceptives, the amount of time it takes to get an appointment for a mammogram and whether mandatory vaccination against the HPV virus is ethical.
In other parts of the world, it's not out of the question for a man to decide that it's easier and cheaper to get a new wife than to save the one who's hemorrhaging. The chances of living though childbirth is fundamental to the health and rights of women.
In the most extreme example, if men in a seriously male dominated society can't rally to save the women who bring their sons into the world, you can bet regular health care is a low priority. And if women don't even rate high enough to receive basic health care, what motivation does the society have to provide girls with education?
Motherhood is not fundamental to women. It's not crucial that every woman has children. But even childless women have a stake in childbirth being safe because it's such a strong indicator of the value a society places on women.
Of all the things that separate the sexes, pregnancy and childbirth is immutably, unquestionably an experience only women can have. No matter how supportive a man is, or even how helpful during the delivery, at the end of it all it was a woman who nurtured the baby and a woman who brought it into the world. As Shakespeare said, "we are all of woman born."
A pure emotional argument to care for safe deliveries is that we have a responsibility to honor our mothers - the humans who nurtured us into life. The practical argument is that it is simply not possible for nations to fully develop economically without the participation of half of their citizens.
In any event, when a woman dies in this country during childbirth, it’s as shocking as it is tragic. In this country, our debates about pregnancy and motherhood often involve opinions about epidurals, water births, and breastfeeding -- but almost never about mortality. Because we have that luxury not to realize that childbirth is a human rights issue.
]]>At last! I thought. A kindred spirit. Just the publication to bring global women's health to the national debate. So I flipped through the list looking for "Every minute of every day a woman dies in childbirth."
No luck. The closest stat read "the average Japanese women can expect to live to be 84. The average Botswanan will reach just 39." Promising but the larger explanation is not centered on women specifically.
But Williams did point out that cars kill two people every minute and that the vast majority of those deaths are in low-income countries. She explains that cars don't have the same safety standards and roads are often in very bad shape "so small investments in road safety can make such an enormous difference in the developing world."
I often argue that investing in roads is one of the things that has to happen to reduce maternal mortality around the world.
Again, I think the concept for this book is terrific and I'm sure there are 50 more stats that are equally good and that Williams hears them every day. I'll give a nod to her inclusion of the FGM stat "two million women and girls are subjected to female genital mutilation each year" and the fact that "some 30 million people in Africa have HIV," but the fact that all women in low-income countries are at enormously high risk of dying in childbirth didn't make the list is a bit shocking. Childbirth is fundamental to many women. Maternal mortality affects women in many parts of the world virtually indiscriminately unless serious, concerted efforts are made to address it.
Still, I do believe that Williams, who is actually from New Zealand, is somewhat of a kindred spirit. She practically spoke our One Woman Can philosophy when she said:
Some of these questions like inequality in the world, rich countries versus poor countries, all of that, these are very, very big questions and we can change the world in some ways by thinking, well, who am I going to vote for in an election? Shall I ask my local MP to explain to me how he sees issues like debt relief and so on? But there are some things that we can do that are easy, like going to the supermarket and deciding that you're not going to buy imported tomatoes in the middle of winter... And that sounds like a really small thing but if we all do it then it will have an impact. I think what I really want people to feel is that they can make decisions - even if it's just a decision of how to spend their money in the supermarket, it will make a difference.
With all her political savvy, maybe her next book will be "50 Facts That Could Improve the Lives of Women." There can be no doubt that concerted efforts to change the world have to include efforts targeted specifically at the challenges that belong largely to women.
]]>In a piece in this past Sunday's New York Times magazine entitled "The Evangelical Crackup," David D. Kirkpatrick quotes Bill Hybels as saying that conservative Christians are telling their leaders, "We are interested in the poor, in racial reconciliation, in global poverty and AIDS, in the plight of women in the developing world."
Let me reiterate that last part. Bill Hybels, founder of the megachurch, Willow Creek Community, near Chicago, and cited by Kirkpatrick as possibly the single-most-influential pastor in America, said, "interested...in the plight of women in the developing world."
Now, what made me drop my cup of tea was not that the conservative Hybels cares about women in low-income countries. As I've mentioned, nobody thinks women should die in childbirth from preventable complications. Hardly anybody thinks violence against women is acceptable. And everybody thinks girls should have access to education.
And it is clear to anybody who is paying any attention that countries cannot develop to their fullest potential without the participation of half of their citizens. So I am not surprised that Hybels considers the challenges for women to be worthy of his church.
I am surprised that the public debate that I have been coveting (dare I say praying for?) among the Presidential candidates may emerge thanks to a leader in the movement that has so publicly sought to restrict the rights of women over the years.
Don't misunderstand me. I have always believed that most of the members of the Conservative movement supported the work of UNFPA. In fact, I have heard about a very conservative minister who sounds very much like me when he speaks of the need to elevate the status of women around the world so that they are not so vulnerable to maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS. I just never expected to hear one of their leaders give a public shout out to the "plight of women" around the world.
In all my daydreams on this issue, it was not the pastor in khaki pants and a polo shirt that stood up to the mic. But I'll be the first to hand the mic to Hybels if he will ask the Presidential candidates:
Are we the kind of country who uses global women's health for political expediency? Or are we a generous and noble country that promotes equality?
Forty million dollars is less than 1/100th of one percent of the federal budget. Is that really what the American public wants to contribute to safe motherhood, HIV prevention and girls' access to education around the world?
Senator/Governor, if elected, would you restore funding to UNFPA to assist in global efforts to promote women and reduce poverty?
In truth, I don't know what Bill Hybels thinks about UNFPA specifically but I'd be happy to have a discussion with him about how we in the "women's rights movement" could work with the members of the 12,000 churches in his network to promote women around the world. Can I, a Muslim American, get an "Amen?"
]]>But I fear compassion fatigue is overtaking us. There are so many problems that seem insurmountable and we are barraged with the images of need. We see women, mostly African, on CNN starving to death, dying of AIDS, raped by soldiers or forced into marriage at very young ages. The problems seem just too overwhelming.
But that is not every woman in Africa, or Asia, or Latin America, for that matter.
There is no doubt that there are vast differences between an average woman in the West and an average woman in a low-income country. Of course, we are all aware of disparities and paradoxes. We all know that there are low-income communities in the West, primarily communities of color, whose problems are similar to those of women in low-income nations. Rich women in low-income countries may have lives far better than those of the average Western woman. But there are many commonalities amongst the world's women. We all grow up with dreams. We contemplate marriage and children in some way. We love, laugh and cry at similar situations and celebrate similar passages through life. We all hope for a better future. And even in the every day, the content of our conversations is not always so far apart.
It is these stories -- of women living, working, being -- that humanize them, that bring us closer to each other.
This week we launch Lifelines, a new online community. We ask women all over the world to share their stories and then compare them with the stories of others. We believe it is these shared experiences that engage people in these global challenges, create lasting relationships and lead people to action.
In the United States, for well-intentioned reasons, we have long viewed international assistance as a give-and-receive transaction. We give because we have been given much and others who live in more difficult circumstances receive. Because Americans value ingenuity and responsibility, we especially prefer to give to programs that teach a people to fish rather than giving them the fish.
While I appreciate the motivations that drive people to give - they see suffering and they want to do what they can - this model is problematic in that it sets up an artificial barrier between the givers and the receivers. As we all know, even the giver gets something back, usually in the sense of feeling better about themselves by having done the "right" thing.
It is when we see each other as people - not givers and receivers - that we realize that none of this is hopeless and that what we do, even the small things, matter.
There are enough real barriers that divide us: language, geography economic or political conditions that keep us from meeting each other. But if you log on to Lifelines and compare your life to others, you'll learn about an 87-year-old woman who said, "I was the first woman in my family to go to college, although I didn't complete my degree. I still keep in touch with my best friends from school (it's been 60 years)."
Or a woman in her 20s who wrote, "My family is full of dynamic women. To name just one: my mom. She's always interested and kind and never deterred by hard work."
I hope you will all visit our site and include yourself in our online community and invite your sister, mother, partner or best friend to tell their story too: www.americansforunfpalifelines.org
]]>I started my first post on RH Reality with this fact: You are hard pressed to find an American who thinks 529,000 women dying each year from preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth is not a problem worth solving.
Some people - not many but some - find contraception controversial and there is, of course, the debate about whether we should spend money on condoms or abstinence to prevent HIV. But find me one person who thinks women should die giving life. There will probably always be some cases where women die in childbirth - the human body remains something of a mystery. But almost all of the deaths that occur today as a result of pregnancy and/or childbirth are preventable.
Most health indicators have improved over the last 20 years but not maternal mortality. It continues to plague women, mostly low-income women. And that's probably because there are so many factors that must be addressed. Smallpox required health care workers to immunize a vast segment of the population, an admittedly large task, but then those people were safe. A woman can reproduce over 30 years of her life and each pregnancy presents a new risk.
And each piece of the solution presents another set of challenges - trained health care workers need to be where the patients are, facilities need equipment, roads need to be maintained, ambulances need fuel. And these are the tangible problems. This doesn't even account for societal challenges.
A few weeks ago, my organization honored Salamatou Traoré, who runs a program for fistula patients in Niger. A trained midwife, Madame Traoré points out that in West Africa, women are supposed to bear children without crying. So they don't tell anyone about their pain or when they feel that something is wrong. Changing these societal expectations is a probably a greater challenge than building a road to the clinic.
If it weren't so complicated, this would be the kind of issue that finds its way to party platforms. But because it can't be explained in sound bites, it just hangs out there.
Instead, politicians largely ignore the issues in favor of more controversial issues over which they can beat up their opponents (condoms vs. abstinence, etc.). In the media, we get sensationalized stories about celebrity marriages, murders and even domestic violence. Of course, the media also covers some key international women issues. For example, on October 7, New York Times front page article on rape in Congo. A light should be shined on that issue.
But I find myself often annoyed about discussions on global women's health and rights. I care deeply for the rape victims and the fistula patients. And I see these problems as a part of a broader challenge. By focusing exclusively on a series of egregious and tragic examples of the most extreme cases of society failing women, we lose sight of the fact that, in many parts of the world, it's bad for your health just to be a woman. Why are we not concerned with the millions of women who marry, have children, do what they can to feed them and hope that their lives are better? Why don't these women - not the brutalized or dying, but the merely poor - deserve our attention, too?
If we found a way to end fistula, that would be a wonderful thing for the two million women who suffer from it. If we could prevent early marriage, economic development would improve around the world.
But if we could crack maternal mortality, we would truly change the world. (Or if we changed the world - or at least women's place in it -- we could crack maternal mortality.) Shouldn't the United States, where maternal mortality is one tenth what it is in other parts of the world, lead that charge?
The Women Deliver conference is being billed as a landmark global conference to focus on creating political will to save the lives and improve the health of women, mothers and newborn babies around the world. Our leaders should be ashamed that we have to build political will.
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