Review: May General Meeting

by Minoli de Soysa

UNWA May general meeting

The May general meeting was held at the ICDDR,B guest house in Gulshan. President Vanessa Brooks told members that the UN Ball would be held on Saturday, October 25 this year, at the Sonargaon Hotel. She said a ball committee would be formed and asked members to find businesses and organizations interested in contributing and giving advertisements. She said solicitation letters would be given from UNWA.

Liti Lissner reminded members that fees have to be paid by June or guest fees would have to be paid for attending meetings and newsletters would not be delivered to people who have not paid up. Only 18 full members have so far renewed their membership. Liti urged full members to bring in other full members to join UNWA, so that associate members could be accepted into UNWA.

Treasurer Allison Thomas-Hessic said UNWA had opened a Short Term Deposit Account to earn 4 percent interest to increase the Welfare Committee Fund.

Vanessa thanked member Naaz Farhana Ahmed for providing the snacks for the meeting.

She then introduced UNWA member Janet Jackson, Deputy Representative of UNFPA in Bangladesh, to talk on her work. Janet began by thanking UNWA for its support in helping her to settle down when she first arrived in Dhaka.

Family Planning, Reproductive Health and Reproductive Rights in Bangladesh

Janet gave an overall picture of the situation of family planning, reproductive health and reproductive rights in Bangladesh. UNFPA works in all these areas with the government, other UN agencies and NGOs.

Bangladesh is at the crossroads of reproductive health and rights. Family planning started in the 1970s, with efforts to obtain contraceptives to address high population growth and fertility rates. In the 1980s, maternal and child health, education and women in development were emphasized, largely through a primary health care and door-to-door service delivery focus. In the 1990s, women’s health and reproductive health in general became issues, broadening access to include emergency obstetric care. Now, Bangladesh is more on client-centered care, focusing on reproductive rights and access to better quality of services and contraceptive choice.

Population and Reproduction:
Some Facts

In 20 years time, the population will be 250 million
Only 50 percent of girls attend secondary school. Of these, 50 percent drop out
By 15, the average Bangladeshi girl is married; by 17 she has had her first child
Each year, 15,000 women, the equivalent of 375 buses with 40 passengers, die due to pregnancy-related causes
Most pregnancy related deaths can be avoided and violence accounts for 14% of maternal deaths
60 to 70 percent of men think it is all right to beat their wives
Bangladesh has the fourth highest rate of violence against women in the world
Although there is a low prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS, vulnerability to the spread of HIV/AIDS is high
Only 4 percent of couples use condoms

Janet stressed that people had to have enough information so that they could decide how many children they should have, when to have them and whether to have children at all. Bangladesh faces many problems including one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Many of these deaths were preventable. Women also suffered silently from illnesses caused by pregnancy and childbirth. A comparatively high number of couples use contraception (almost 54%), but the drop-out rate is also very high.

Although the HIV/AIDS rate is low, Bangladesh has high vulnerability due to changing lifestyles, sex workers having the highest number of clients per week in the world coupled with low condom usage, as well as high rates of reproductive tract infections and incidence of IV drug users sharing the same needle.

Bangladesh also has a huge young population who will soon come into the workforce. The government, with proper planning, can use this to their advantage. However, one of the consequences of rising unemployment can be an increase in the birth rate and unplanned pregnancy. Young people, married and unmarried, also need advice on reproductive health and rights; and in the last four years, there has been a greater readiness to talk about such issues.

A major problem facing the country is violence against women. UNFPA is carrying out studies on why men think it is all right to mete out such horrific violence to women, who become the focal point of their anger and frustration. There needs to be a public outcry against violence against women.

The focus now in reproductive health is on providing information for people to choose freely the best method of family planning that suits them. The public health service must improve its performance in delivering family planning services because it is the largest service provider of family planning.

Men need to be involved because they are crucial to women’s ability to have autonomy over their reproductive choices.

Over ninety percent of Bangladeshi women have their babies at home, so safe home birthing is a priority. Most have no trained help, neither do they seek prenatal and postnatal care.

In Bangladesh, the family planning programme has achieved in 25 what other countries typically took 50 years to achieve. It is now ready to move forward.

Although the situation of women is improving and there are more women in the workforce, they have not reached the management and decision-making levels in significant enough numbers to create the critical mass needed to begin to make a difference to gender equity and equality.