Thirty years of progress on sexual and reproductive health for women and girls are now at risk, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned.
Thirty years ago, at a conference in Cairo, 179 countries agreed to put reproductive health at the heart of sustainable development, which “paved the way for decades of progress,” said UNFPA chief Natalia Kanem.
Since then, the rate of unintended pregnancies has fallen by almost 20 percent worldwide and the number of maternal deaths decreased by 34 percent between 2000 and 2020, the UNFPA said in its flagship annual State of World Population report.
The number of women using contraceptives has doubled, and at least 162 countries have passed laws against domestic violence.
However, “the rights of women, girls, and gender-diverse people are the subject of increasing pushback,” Kamen said. “Annual reductions in maternal deaths have flattened. Since 2016 the world made zero progress in saving women from preventable deaths in pregnancy and childbirth,” she stressed.
The UNFPA said racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination were also blocking broad gains in sexual and reproductive health for women and girls.
Kanem added that gender-based violence remains rampant in practically every country, while “one woman in four cannot say no to sex.”
Almost half of all women are still unable to make decisions about their own bodies, nor to exercise their rights regarding sexual and reproductive health.
The trouble with most initiatives has always been sustaining the early wins and success, as was the case with sexual and reproductive health for the women and girls of the planet. Now that it has made serious gains and has met resistance from certain quarters who might feel threatened by those advances, it will need more effort from all those who want this particular sustainable development goal to be met. As we now work towards those goals, we also have to address the hearts and minds of those whose opinions on the matter are formed by politics, narrow worldviews, and old fashioned mentalities, most of whom ironically do not have an uterus.*
