As the world is focusing on "Reducing Poverty--Improving
Reproductive Health" on World Population Day on July 11, 2002,
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of UNFPA in China pledged
once more to support women around the world and free them from poor
health and illiteracy.
"When women are educated and healthy, their families, communities
and nations benefit," she said. "Eight years after the historic
International Conference on Population and Development, we must
renew our commitment to universal access to education and
reproductive health services by the year 2015."
The men and women stuck in extreme poverty lack real choices,
opportunities and basic services to improve their situations. Due
to inequality and discrimination, women suffer the most. One fourth
of all women in developing countries are adversely affected at some
point in their lives by a lack of proper maternal health care.
Every minute, one woman dies during pregnancy and birth because she
did not receive adequate care and prompt treatment. This amounts to
deadly neglect.
"By increasing interventions for safe motherhood, especially
emergency obstetric care, we can save the lives of half a million
women and seven million infants, and prevent millions of women from
suffering from infections, injury and disability each year," said
Thoraya.
Perhaps nowhere is the need for reproductive health services more
urgent than in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Every day, 14,000 people
are newly infected and half are young people under the age of 25.
Many know little about the disease and how the virus is
transmitted. Of all groups, women and youth are the most
vulnerable. In some African countries, teenage girls are five times
more likely to be infected with HIV than bots are their same age.
Reproductive health services than empower women and young people
with HIV/AIDS life-saving messages and skills will help stop
HIV/AIDS from spreading and reduce further suffering and social and
economic disruption.
Thoraya also urged to step up efforts for family planning. Today
women in the developing world are having half as many children as
they did in the 1960s, down from an average of six children per
family to there, she pointed out. The last two generation of women
have chosen to have smaller families and the next generation will
do the same if they have access to education and reproductive
health services. However, 350 million couples still do not have
access to a range of effective and affordable family planning
services and demand for these services is expected to increase by a
further 40 percent in the next 15 years.
"The war on poverty will not be won unless we direct more resources
to women and reproductive health," said the UNFPA executive
director. Developing countries that have invested in health and
education, enabling women to make their own fertility choices, have
registered faster economic growth than those that have not. When
couples can choose the number, timing and spacing of their
children, they are better able to ensure there are enough resources
for each family member to prosper and thrive. Today the greatest
deficits in access to health services can be found in the poorest
segments of the population. "By channeling resources to
reproductive healthcare, we can save lives, stabilize population
growth, slow the spread of AIDS, reduce poverty and foster gender
equality. Let us keep our promise and make that very good
investment," Thoraya said.
(china.org.cn edited by Li Jinhui, July 11, 2002)