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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-24 Daily Xml
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MATERNAL MORTALITY, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (15:41): Yesterday the Parliament of Papua New Guinea voted to allow 22 from the 109 seats in the parliament to be reserved for women. That vote was passed yesterday. Currently they have only one woman in the house, and that is Dame Carol Kidu. So I think it is timely that I raise another issue, which is the inadequate care provided to women in developing countries during pregnancy and childbirth.

The World Health Organisation estimates that there are still 500,000 deaths of women a year through childbirth. Across the world a mother gives birth every minute, 99 per cent of them in developing countries. Among the many measures of population health, maternal mortality is the one indicator that highlights the biggest discrepancy between developing and developed countries. Whereas in Australia one in 10,000 women die during childbirth, in developing countries this can be as high as one in 12. What is vital to comprehend is that each maternal death also has serious consequences for the women's family and community, and particularly for her infant's survival.

For each woman who dies there are many others who are severely ill or disabled by childbirth; for example by bleeding, anaemia, infection or injury to the genital area or urinary tract. These injuries have long-term consequences for the woman's health and well-being. They often prevent her from having a future physical relationship with her husband, which then leads to a marriage breakdown and the abandonment and often exile of the woman by her family and her community. What is important is that the lives of most of these women and babies could be saved through emergency care that is readily available to women in wealthier countries.

Linked to maternal mortality is the fact that statistics show that motherless newborns in a developing country are three to 10 times more likely to die than children whose mothers are alive to care for them. In our immediate region maternal mortality is particularly high in Laos, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea (although hopefully things will change there), East Timor and Indonesia.

On a broader issue, maternal death and illness is shown by the United Nations to be costly for families due to high direct health costs, loss of income and loss of other economic contributions, as well as contributing to disturbed family relationships and the obvious social stresses that come with that. The UN has demonstrated close links between the promotion of gender equity in reduction of maternal and infant mortality. As part of the development of the Millennium Development Goals, the UN projects seeking to close the gender gap in education by 2015 will certainly avert 31,000 deaths in Afghanistan, 5,000 in Mali and as many as 240,000 in India.

The current federal government is committed to supporting strategic and well targeted aid programs that advance gender equity and the empowerment of women in developing countries. Certainly those of us on this side believe that gender equity is crucial to the growth, governance and stability of all countries. Education is obviously a key to gender equity. We know that educating girls saves lives.

Sadly, according to a recent Save the Children report, 58 million girls in the developing world do not attend school. Educated girls are more likely to grow up to be mothers who are healthy, well nourished, economically empowered and resourceful when it comes to caring for them and their babies. Even small amounts of education for girls can make a significant difference in saving the lives of children under five.

The World Health Organisation estimates that one additional year of female schooling reduces fertility by 0.3 to 0.5 children per woman and reduces the probability of a child's death by at least 2 per cent. In a typical developing country with a population of 20 million and an under-five mortality rate of 150 deaths per 1,000 children, giving girls one additional year of schooling would save as many as 60,000 children's lives.

Time expired.

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