By Sanjay Suri and Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
LONDON, Oct 20 2010 (IPS)

The U.S.-led invasion and then occupation of Iraq brought a sharp setback to the rights of women in that country, UNFPA head Thoraya Obaid tells IPS in an interview.

Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

Obaid spoke to IPS Wednesday at the launch of the annual UNFPA report, focused this year on the role of women in peace building. Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Is there any evidence that women are better than men at peace building and rebuilding? A: There is evidence that not only in peace building and rebuilding but in other areas as with migrant workers, the priorities for women are usually different. As a result women invest in the family, and during conditions where there is war or natural disaster, you will find that women can even cross borders to be able to keep the family together, and are able to negotiate the safety of their families. So in that context we see that women should be a part of any peace building negotiations.

Q: Women can play that role when they have an opportunity, but is there any sign that women are getting more such opportunities? A: Sadly, no. Opportunities are still limited because the recognition that women can play that role is still limited. We are saying that if we invest enough in women, in their education, in empowering them to have a voice, to raise their voice, and if we recognise their voices and find space for them to play a role in peace building, then they will do a good job.

Liberia is a very good example of that. It’s women who walk the streets saying we want peace. But society still does not recognise the real value of women, and that is a real problem.

Q: There is a widespread perception that the position of women in Islamic societies is low. But in Iraq women had many rights, that vanished after the Americans came along. A: I worked in Iraq for eight years until the invasion of Kuwait. We were there as a part of the Economic Commission for Western Asia, and we worked with women’s groups there at that time, and certainly, by the time we left the Federation of Iraqi Women had put together the best family laws you can get from all the different sects, and also labour laws. But then the invasion came and the whole thing went apart.

When the U.S. came in, they went back to the family laws of 1958. That tells you how far they have gone back. What they did was to cancel everything that was previous. And that is not really a good judgment for women. It was quite a bit of difference.

Q: How does this square with the perception that left to themselves, Muslim societies are backward, and that the U.S is the progressive one? A: That is a political question in many ways. There are stereotypes of Muslim countries, and Muslim women. I’m a Muslim woman, and I don’t fit that stereotype. There are many like me. I come from Saudi Arabia, and see where I am right now. This is the stereotyping of a people and also of a religion, and as a result assumptions are based on such perceptions. In many ways it is perceptions that hinder Muslim women in many places.

Q: Is the U.N. making a difference, or does it just produce reports? A: Look at the report we are putting out on Security Council resolution 1325. This has brought the issue of women as peace makers and peace builders into a higher level of political awareness. As a result, at least 19 countries are putting into place their own plans on how to bring women to end violence against women in wars, conflict and natural disasters, in camps and so on. These studies are important because they mobilise political leaders and I think that is a very important role for the United Nations.

Q: What does this report say that is significant and new? A: The new trend we are trying to bring into the discussion about women is the three R’s – Resilience, Renewal, and Redefining roles. Women are always seen as victims. We are saying women are not victims. Women have the resilience, they keep the families together. And with renewal, when we are rebuilding after a crisis, we should not rebuild society as it was before, with all the inequalities and inequities in it, but on a new human rights paradigm that will bring equality.

Q: How can the MDGs targets be met in relation to conflicts? A: A part of conflicts is poverty, and poverty brings conflict. So MDG 1 on poverty cannot be achieved if there is no peace and security. Each of the MDGs requires peace and security.

And with MDG5 on maternal health, for a long time actors in the humanitarian field did not recognise that women have special needs. In war and natural disasters, they do deliver babies, they do have biological functions that require special attention. There is a need to take care of their integrity and their dignity. So we are looking at MDG 5 because we want women to deliver babies in a clean state, and that they are safe.

More importantly [is] that they are protected from violence – when violence takes place, that they are provided with the services that support them but also that perpetrators of violence are brought to justice. Violence against women is part of the MDG5 target on universal access to reproductive health.

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By Thoraya Ahmed Obaid and - -
NEW YORK, Jun 17 2008 (IPS)

(By Thoraya Ahmed Obaid anf Theresa Shaver) Every minute of every day a woman dies in childbirth. Not from a disease that couldn’t be cured. Or from complications that couldn’t be treated. Almost always she dies because she didn’t receive the most basic life-saving care, write Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Theresa Shaver, Director of The White Ribbon Alliance fro Safe Motherhood. While the advances of medical care ­antibiotics, better obstetric procedures and control of infections­ sent maternal death ratios plummeting in the 20th century in rich countries, complications in pregnancy and childbirth remain the leading killer of women in Africa and South Asia. This is despite numerous pledges by world leaders spanning two decades, and a commitment to work together to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5 to improve maternal health, get universal access to reproductive health and reduce maternal death by 75 per cent by 2015. At current rates of change, this goal will not be met until 2076 at the earliest in Asia… and many years later in Africa. The tragedy of a mother lost, while shattering to every family, is not suffered equally by the rich and poor. Even though 15 per cent of pregnant women worldwide experience life-threatening complications, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying from such complications is 1 in 26 in Africa, compared to 1 in 7300 in developed countries.

This is the story of 13-year old Husan Pari from Pakistan, told by her mother Saeeda Bibi. Unfortunately, it is not an uncommon story.

Every minute of every day a woman dies in childbirth. Not from a disease that couldn’t be cured. Or from complications that couldn’t be treated. Almost always she dies because she didn’t receive the most basic life-saving care.

While the advances of medical care ­antibiotics, better obstetric procedures and control of infections­ sent maternal death ratios plummeting in the 20th century in rich countries, complications in pregnancy and childbirth remain the leading killer of women in Africa and South Asia. This is despite numerous pledges by world leaders spanning two decades, and a commitment to work together to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5 to improve maternal health, get universal access to reproductive health and reduce maternal death by 75 per cent by 2015. At current rates of change, this goal will not be met until 2076 at the earliest in Asia… and many years later in Africa.

The tragedy of a mother lost, while shattering to every family, is not suffered equally by the rich and poor. Even though 15 per cent of pregnant women worldwide experience life-threatening complications, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying from such complications is 1 in 26 in Africa, compared to 1 in 7300 in developed countries.

Whether in Bangladesh or in Belgium, pregnant women need to receive quality, compassionate, culturally sensitive care before, during and after childbirth. The good news is that we know how to save women’s lives. When women have access to reproductive health services­family planning, skilled birth attendants, emergency obstetric care and post-natal care, they almost always survive. In Malaysia, after introducing midwives at the community level, maternal deaths dropped dramatically. In Sri Lanka, maternal mortality was halved in just a decade by extending health services to rural areas, training midwives, introducing family planning and advancing obstetric care.

That half a million women die each year in pregnancy or childbirth is a marker of failing health systems that are unable to provide the most basic primary and emergency health care. Similarly, the almost 8 million newborn stillbirths and deaths each year are largely the result of the same gaps in health care that cause the death and disability of their mothers. Yet, a package of maternal health services costing less than $1.50 per person could make significant improvements in women’s health in the 75 countries where 95 per cent of maternal and child deaths occur. Experts estimate that an additional $6 billion in annual funding could dramatically reduce maternal and newborn deaths in developing countries. This sum is the equivalent of about one and a half days of global military spending.

It takes political will backed by financial resources to bring down the number of mothers dying needlessly during childbirth, and we applaud the five nations ­ Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden ­ that have met the target of giving 0.7 per cent of gross national income for development aid. We ask the rest to do the same and urgently call upon the Group of Eight (G-8) and other world leaders to invest in maternal health services so that all pregnant women have access to lifesaving care.

Making the health and rights of women a global priority is not only the right thing to do, it is smart economics. When women are educated and healthy and can participate fully in society, the social and economic benefits extend to their families, communities, and nations. It pays off to invest in women. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
LONDON, Oct 22 2007 (IPS)

The Women Deliver conference held in London last week has reminded a lot of people in the world of healthcare how much more they need to deliver to make pregnancy and childbirth safer for women.

Thoraya Obaid Credit:

IPS: What did this conference deliver?

TO: It delivered a high level of attention to maternal health; this is what it intended to do, and it did it very well. The challenge is that it has now raised expectations; among ministers, NGOs, among us at the UN, there is now a high expectation to deliver on the ground, so that is the big challenge coming out of it.

IPS: But what specifically should come out of it?

TO: The problem before was that everything was done vertically. Now with the emphasis that maternal health is not just a medical issue, it is much more an issue of the community, and society, what we need to do is to ensure that we integrate the various components of maternal health so that women at risk of dying when giving birth – and it is usually the poor ones – will receive a coherent, integrated package of health.

When there are services in the community they can go for pre-natal care, they can go for post-natal, they can go for delivery with skilled attendants, they can get HIV-AIDS counselling, and so the whole idea is to bring various components together. This did not happen over the past 20 years because provision of care was very vertical.

IPS: What does a shift from what you call a vertical approach mean on the ground? Will it mean among other things less intervention from medical authorities in government?

TO: Earlier a lot of emphasis was given to primary healthcare at the community level, and we have lost a great deal of that. Now there is a push to go back to effective community units of healthcare.

The health system does need to deliver at community level, and one thing that came out of the conference, and it was repeated in many forms, was that maternal health is the litmus test for the whole health system, in the sense that services need to be in place. This means that there are clinics that will take care of her during pregnancy and after pregnancy, that the woman will have skilled attendants at birth, and in case of emergency she can have necessary care. This requires that you have a surgery room, it means you need to have blood available for transfusion, it means you need to have equipment in the surgery room. If you have all this at hand, then you can use this for all the other health problems that can arise.

IPS: What is the number of maternal deaths today relative to 20 years ago?

TO: The problem is that it hasn&#39t improved much. We&#39re still talking of half a million deaths a year, about the same figure 20 years ago. This is the number of deaths associated with pregnancy and childbirth.

IPS: Does sub-Saharan Africa still have the worst of this, and have there been any regional improvements?

TO: Yes, there are a number of countries that have been able to make the jump. We use Sri Lanka, Egypt, Honduras, Mexico as examples of countries where there was a great deal of investment in primary healthcare and integrating programmes, and where a jump in better maternal health took place. They have also moved quickly to provide for emergency care so that women can be moved very quickly to hospitals.

IPS: Is a lot of funding going for the big three – AIDS, TB and malaria – and not enough into maternal health?

TO: Yes, the one that has suffered most is family planning. The three interventions we need here are, one, to have skilled birth attendants, the second is emergency obstetric care, and the third one is family planning, because if a woman can plan her family, and ensure spacing between her children, that is good for her and for the child. But investment in family planning went down in the last 20 years, with investment in HIV/AIDS rising to large amounts.

IPS: Is there a need for more education to bring down the incidence of maternal mortality?

TO: Yes, girls education. That is why we are saying this must be an integrated package, you have to promote girls education, you have to ensure transportation means to take the woman from her village to the health point where you can have medical intervention, so it is a whole system that has to be put in place.

IPS: Is there sufficient skilled medical care available?

TO: What is making things worse is that many skilled midwifes, nurses and doctors are migrating. And so the whole issue of human resources is becoming serious. We at the UNFPA have started working with the International Federation of Midwifes to put in place training of midwifes in many, many countries.

IPS: Was there anything at this conference to encourage you to think that the next 20 years might be better than the last 20?

TO: Yes, I think this conference has energised people. Donors, NGOs, ministers of health, the UN have all looked at one another and said we can&#39t do it alone. We have to be together, otherwise we cannot deliver. We know each of us has some advantage that can fill the gap that the other cannot. Even though this is common sense, it somehow hit home very hard at this conference that more of fragmentation cannot work over the next 20 years. This is a very important message that came out.

IPS: Any other?

TO: The other important message that came out is that the right to health is a human right. Within that, maternal health becomes a very basic human right. And this can change the way that things are looked at, so that human rights organisations don&#39t just look at torture, imprisonment and so on, but see that the needless death of women is a violation of human rights.

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By Thoraya Ahmed Obaid and - -
NEW YORK, Sep 6 2005 (IPS)

From September 14-16, world leaders will meet in New York to discuss the Millennium Development Goals, writes Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund. In this article, Obaid points out that the most successful developing countries in terms of economic growth, less poverty, longer lives, and healthier people were those with slower population growth. And that was achieved not by government directive but by helping ordinary men and women make their own decisions about how many children to have, and when. Now, reproductive health problems account for a third of the burden of disease among women of reproductive age (15-44) worldwide. In Africa, the figure is two thirds. Healthy people make better workers, better workers make stronger economies, and stronger economies allow people to live better and make good choices. Poor women have known this for a long time. To strengthen the Millennium Goals, the Millennium Project team has recommended a new target: universal access to reproductive health by 2015 to be achieved through the primary health care system. At this Summit, leaders will have an unprecedented chance to change women\’s lives, to end poverty, not just in their lifetimes, but in the next few years. And the women of the world will find out if their well-being is a priority or not.

But haven’t we been here before?

There have been many agreements and many failures. The difference is that the Millennium Development Goals are a unifying force that has focused the planning and spending of both rich and poor nations on a common cause. The Millennium Project, undertaken by a group of 265 of the world’s leading development experts, has broken down the eight Goals into reachable targets and realistic indicators of progress, from maternal death to debt problems. They are all based on real-world calculations. Many were generated by the great series of conferences on social issues that took place in the 1990s, among them the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994.

The big shift that took place in Cairo was that demographics met development. Looking back on years of work, the most successful developing countries –successful in terms of economic growth, less poverty, longer lives, and healthier people– were those with slower population growth. And that was achieved not by government directive but by helping ordinary men and women make their own decisions about how many children to have, and when. Given a real choice, most women had smaller families than their mothers. So in less than a generation, average family size in South-east Asian countries fell from over five to less than three. The same thing is happening now in other countries across the world, from Brazil to Bangladesh.

The key word is “real”. Choice means that women and men can make up their own minds about what to do and have the information and the means to do so. The successful countries invested heavily, for example, in education, and made sure that girls as well as boys went to school. Literacy is empowerment. The simple ability to fill in a form or read instructions opens up a new world for women. The more education a woman has, the more she is able to build her life to her own design, not by accident or someone else’s decisions, and the more she can contribute to the well-being of her family, her community, and her country.

There is a two-way relationship between economic growth and health, says the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London: ”Life expectancy and adult survival rates exercise a positive impact on human capital formation and hence on economic growth. In turn, sustained growth rates allow for better health conditions.” In plain English, that means that healthy people make better workers, better workers make stronger economies, and stronger economies allow people to live better and make good choices.

Poor women have known this for a long time. Or rather, they know that ill-health means they can’t work, and then the whole family suffers; for women aren’t just breadwinners in poor families, they are cooks, nurses, cleaners and child-care experts, too. When the World Bank asked poor women what they feared most, ill health was the first thing they mentioned.

The biggest single cause of ill health among poor women is maternity: pregnancy, childbirth, and the period immediately afterwards are the most dangerous times of a woman’s life. A Tanzanian mother about to give birth would call her children together and bid them all farewell: ”I am going on a journey, and I may not return.”

Things are not much better today. According to the World Health Organization, reproductive health problems account for a third of the burden of disease among women of reproductive age (15-44) worldwide. In Africa, the figure is two thirds.

Over half a million women die from pregnancy-related causes each year, nearly all of them in low-income countries. Many did not want to be pregnant in the first place. Merely providing women in poor countries with the information and means to choose the size and spacing of their families — a right that has been theirs for nearly 40 years — would save 126,000 women’s lives every year. It would avoid many times that number of maternal illnesses and injuries. It would keep families healthy that would otherwise fall apart — a child whose mother dies is twice as likely to die itself.

To strengthen the Millennium Goals, the Millennium Project team has recommended a new target, universal access to reproductive health by 2015 to be achieved through the primary health care system.. The proposal has strong backing from Member States, both rich and poor. Of course, reproductive health is a sensitive issue in many countries where its components are not well understood.

Essentially, reproductive health is about the life and death of poor women and depends very much on the political decision of each leader.

Of course, reproductive health is a sensitive issue in many countries where its components are not well understood. Essentially, reproductive health is about the life and death of poor women and it is very much a political decision for each leader.

At the 2005 World Summit, those leaders will have an unprecedented chance to change women’s lives, to end poverty, not just in their lifetimes, but in the next few years. This September the women of the world will find out if their well-being is a priority or not. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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