subscribe: Posts | Comments

How to make women matter

0 comments

marie stopes international, make women matter, campaign, unsafe abortion, maternal deathProviding access to reproductive healthcare: a simple and cheap way to save women’s lives.

Every day, 800 women die from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth.

Worldwide, one woman dies every 11 minutes from an unsafe abortion.

Teenage pregnancy is the number one cause of mortality for girls aged between 15 -19.

Girls in South Sudan are more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than complete primary education.

The impact of these deaths is devastating for women and the families and communities they leave behind.

When a mother dies, the risk of death for her children under the age of five goes up by 50 per cent.

Millions of lives could be saved if women had access to basic healthcare and contraception.

It is time for the international community to make women matter.

In 2000 the United Nations and all the countries of the world agreed on a set of eight ‘Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs) to reduce poverty and inequality by 2015.

The fifth goal is to reduce maternal deaths by 75 per cent and achieve universal access to reproductive health.

Of the eight goals, this is the most off track and the majority of countries will not meet this target.

Providing access to reproductive healthcare is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to save women’s lives.

If everyone who wanted to use contraception was able to, 79,000 women’s lives and 1.1 million infants’ lives could be saved in the developing world alone.

And being able to make an informed choice and take control of your own reproductive health is a basic human right.

The United Nations General Assembly will meet in September this year to decide what the new development goals will look like.

Marie Stopes International (MSI) want to remind decision makers to make women matter.

A new set of global development goals is an opportunity to finally give these issues the central position they deserve.

For too long the world’s leaders have ignored the daughters, mothers, wives, sisters and friends who are dying from entirely preventable causes – now is the time to Make Women Matter.

Please sign our petition and join the Make Women Matter campaign to ensure the next development agenda delivers on achieving women’s rights and empowerment; universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights; and ending unsafe abortion.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *