Governments Have Failed To Save Women's Lives

Unaccountable mothers around the globe find themselves caught between the life and death. A situation that can be termed as certainly dangerous due to respected pregnancy, poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease like AIDS and other social pressures have driven millions of mothers towards this situation. Everyday 40,000 mothers die of malnutrition. AIDS and other reproductive causes 50 million lives are claimed by abortion on one hand, many more die during delivery on the other hand.

More and more women in developing countries are not in favor of having too many children but these women do not have easy access to the various types of a family planning facilities. Approximately 29600 women from the South Asian region 34,000 from Latin American and 15000 women from African countries die due to pregnancy and related cases. (According to HMG report)

Similarly the underdeveloped countries have a vast difference in sterilization between the males and females. Seventy five percent of the women undergo sterilization and only 25% of the males undergo vasectomy. The fact here is that the vasectomy operation done on the males is easier and involves less risk as compared to the women sterilization.

It is fearsome yet true, in the developing countries that 1500 women die in abortion cases daily. The fear of society, law and lack of knowledge leads many of these women to undergo abortion especially if the pregnancy is achieved by some immoral activity. All these countries should develop programmes for children, expected mothers, maternal death rate, infant death rate, nutrition, reproduction and implement them successfully.

Even the Cairo conference advocated for maximum promoting of the family planning facilities. Until and unless women get to choose, utilize and consume all the services of family planning, the idea of overall development of the women becomes empty and meaningless. The need for the prevention of unwanted pregnancy, repeated pregnancy, reduction of maternal death rate should target of family planning schemes.

Involvement of women in the field of education is very little hence they are incapable of fighting for their rights. In the South Asian countries, women above the age of 25 or 4 out of 5 women have never seen a school. A recent study shows that 10 million children have not even received the basic education, out of them two thirds are girls.

It is very necessary that the Nation understands the importance of the overall growth of the women and provide them with the various trainings, education and different facilities. It is also necessary to make arrangements for the social and financial development. The concept of reproduction, the dangers attached with repeated pregnancy, abortion and safe motherhood of birth control have to be taught and advocated right from the grassroots level. Only then maternal mortality rate can be checked and reduced to some extent.

The role played by the women in the development of the country in developing world is generally very feeble and insignificant, this is because they are devoid of the opportunity to play an active role. Equal opportunities for both sexes in the field of education and employment is very important but this is not fully accepted.

Moreover, the essential requirements during pregnancy like, balanced diet, healthy environment, maternal and child care is missing the result of witch increases in the number of maternal deaths.

The statistical ratio shows that the present trend of the population growth has out grown the development in the economical and food production sector. If this continues, most of the South Asian countries ravaged by famine and economic crisis. Presently 50 % of the population in developing countries are home less and extremely poor. In fact million people are refugees. The lack of family planning programmes in the rural ares, unwanted pregnancy due to the lack of preventive measures, criminal offenses like rape and illicit sexual relations ending in abortion, which is illegal leads to the death of the women.

In Nepal poverty and lack of health facilities deprive 1.5 million children of their right to go to school. While 28 percent of the rural women suffer from anemia during pregnancy 85 % of the women have to depend on the traditional birth attendants. Child marriage, poverty, lack of civic sense, inactivity on the part of the women regarding their role in society, lack of family planning measures and the popularity of the male child forces the women to mother a child. The health policy in Nepal is strongly objects to these conditions but ironically only 4 percent of the entire budget is allotted for the health sector.

In almost every family women and children are subjected to discrimination. Sixty five percent of that total population are in favor of educating the sons more than the daughters. Twenty two percent of the girls tie their nuptial knot before the age of 13 and 50% of the girls before their 16 birthday. Forty percent of these girls give birth to their first child between the age of 15-19 years.

In Many of the regions family planing schemes and child care programmes are run independent of one another, resulting in difficulty in population control and morality rate. A solution to this problem can be the coordinated efforts of the various programs.

(Kamala Sarup is editor of http://peacejournalism.com/ )

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