The United Nations Populations Fund globally launched this year’s State of World Population report titled “Shelter from the Storm” on Thursday.
This year, the report stated that essential health needs of women remains neglected after natural disasters and conflicts.
It said the health needs of women and adolescents are too often neglected in humanitarian response to natural disasters and conflicts around the world, even though whether women and girls live or die in a crisis often depends on access to basic sexual and reproductive health services like midwives and HIV prevention.
The report shows that of the 100 million people in need of humanitarian assistance around the world today, about 26 million are women and adolescent girls in their childbearing years.
According to the State of World Population, three fifths of maternal deaths today occur in countries that are considered fragile because of conflict or disaster; pregnancy and childbirth kill 507 women every day in these settings.
UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin in a statement said: “The health and rights of women and adolescents should not be treated like an afterthought in humanitarian response. For the pregnant woman who is about to deliver, or the adolescent girl who survived sexual violence, life-saving services are as vital as water, food and shelter.”
UNFPA’s “Shelter from the Storm” calls on governments and assistance groups everywhere to move women’s health and rights, and in particular women’s sexual and reproductive health, from the back seat to the front seat of the world’s humanitarian agenda.
