- Of all adults living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, 61% are women. In the Caribbean, the proportion of women living with the virus is 43%. Though lower, the numbers of women living with HIV in Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe are also growing.
- Between 15% and 71% of women around the world have suffered physical or sexual violence committed by an intimate male partner at some point in their lives. The abuse cuts across all social and economic backgrounds. Violence has serious health consequences for women, from injuries to unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, depression and chronic diseases.
- Every day, 1600 women and more than 10 000 newborns die from preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Almost 99% of maternal and 90% of neonatal mortalities occur in the developing world
- In most countries women tend to be in charge of cooking. When they cook over open fires or traditional stoves, they breathe in a mix of hundreds of pollutants on a daily basis. This indoor smoke is responsible for half a million of the 1.3 million annual deaths due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among women worldwide. In comparison, only about 12% of COPD deaths among men each year are related to indoor smoke. During pregnancy, exposure of the developing embryo to such harmful pollutants may cause low birth weight or even stillbirth.
- Across the world and at all ages, women have a significantly higher risk of becoming visually impaired than men. Even so, women do not have equal access to health care to treat eye diseases often due to their inability to travel unaccompanied to health facilities, and cultural differences in the perceived value of surgery or treatment for women.
Two of the Five Common Shortcomings of Health Care Delivery cited by the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/whr/2008/whr08_en.pdf), relate to poverty:
- Inverse care. People with the most means – whose needs for health care are often less – consume the most care, whereas those with the least means and greatest health problems consume the least. Public spending on health services most often benefits the rich more than the poorin high- and low income countries alike.
- Impoverishing care. Wherever people lack social protection and payment for care is largely out-of-pocket at the point of service, they can be confronted with catastrophic expenses. Over 100 million people annually fall into poverty because they have to pay for health care.
UN Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives that world leaders agreed on at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. For each goal one or more targets have been set, most for 2015, using 1990 as a benchmark: 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2. Achieve universal primary education 3. Promote gender equality and empower women 4. Reduce child mortality 5. Improve maternal health 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases 7. Ensure environmental sustainability 8. Develop a global partnership for development
- Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
To promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable.
- In the context of cutting poverty in half by the year 2015: Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights. Still, in 2009, over half a million in developing countries die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth – from causes that are entirely preventable. This is unheard of in North America and Europe. Reducing maternal mortality requires access to skilled care and emergency obstetrics services, which means increased investments in health systems.
- Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
- Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
“Women in Poverty: Tackling the Issue Worldwide” Caren Grown, February 28, 2009, International Convocation of UU Women
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