Centro de prensa
Discursos
"We must invest now, at the highest possible level, to make the HERstory of Afghanistan, a story of life, a story of hope, a story of success"
UNICEF House, 6 November 2002
A year ago we all witnessed a turn in the "HIStory" of Afghanistan. Today, almost a year to the day since the Taliban were forced from Kabul we would like, "HERstory" to take a turn too.
The story of Afghan women story, is still among the worst in the world. In Afghanistan, every minute, around 2 babies are born. And every 20 minutes one woman dies. She dies in the very process that brings forth new life.
We know that, today, 87 per cent of maternal deaths are preventable, and that together, we should and can succeed in bringing down maternal mortality sharply.
Yet, for an Afghan woman one of the happiest days of her life can become her last day on this earth.
The vast majority of these women die of a medical condition brought-on not really by a physical illness, but by a societal ill. They die because they are poor. They die because they are uneducated. They die because they are malnourished, and they die because they live many hours away from adequate health care.
In Afghanistan, women die ...just because they are women!
Because of all these factors, maternal mortality is arguably one of the best indicators of development that we have.
The condition of Afghan women is reflected in an unnecessarily high mortality. So is their perceived value in the society: right from the day she is born, and throughout her life, the Afghan girl gets less.from the food she eats in Ghor Province to the schooling in southern Kandahar that still prescribes her future hope.
In Badakshan, malnourished and stunted, her body is unfit for a normal delivery. She dies at home... often taking with her, her beloved baby, into the Afghan HERstory.
Rarely, has her body regained strength after the birth of her first child, when she conceives again. And again. And again. Until her body's stores are depleted, from creating life, out of her own flesh, time and again. Is that her fate?
In Afghanistan, women say: "we have babies.... until we die".
She may die within days..she may die within hours!, as a result of sudden bleeding. And obstetric emergency help is too far away. She knows that she will die of severe nutritional anemia, when the loss of, as little as a cupful of blood can be fatal in 2 hours.
She greets her family members and quietly dies.
She may die of ignorance, because adequate and timely preventive actions were not taken, even if specialized emergency care was within reach. In Kabul, Khatera delivered her third child , Alim, at home. Five days later, she died in debilitating convulsions. The early warning signs were not noticed, and thus were not correctly dealt with by the family, the doctor, and finally the Mullah. Khatera's story ended with a brutal death in the excruciating pain of a body torn apart. Alim is now a healthy 7-month-old baby, very much loved and cared for.
But, his two sisters, aged 4 and 6, still ask: " Where is our mom?"
I have not spoken of the many, many women who often suffer long- term debilitating maternity-related illness. Nor have I touched on the fact that, when four mothers die, three newborn babies will not survive. And yet another three families will be thrown in disarray, because the loss of the mother seriously endangers its functioning.
No surprise, obstetric complications leading to deaths, are listed, by women and men, as the most critical problem in their communities.
Many women that I have met, are scared of giving birth. Many feel that, the last month of pregnancy, is the last month they will be alive.
But, a year after the Taliban were forced from Kabul the turn of HERstory has started.
Because today Afghan women have hope.
I think it is no more impossible, that in Afghanistan today, motherhood be as safe as fatherhood.
It is high time, indeed long overdue --that Afghan women get a fairer chance in life,. regardless of where they live.
The wide disparities within the country must be tackled,
- whether that means, ensuring community-based quality medical care in every district;
- whether that means facing up to the provincial insecurity in parts of the country;
- whether that means addressing social behaviours that restrict a woman's ability to benefit from the care to which she is entitled.
Very few programmes for women's health are operating, but the immediate need now is for aggressive programmes, directed at:
- investing in generations of health workers, from the community-level up to national centers of excellence for maternal health, and;
- re-creating skills and knowledge, left undeveloped over the past 20 years;
Truly, there are no mysteries here, and the question must be asked:
"Why hasn't the obscenity of 27, 000 mothers dying each year, been confronted and eliminated earlier?"
I have not been long enough in Afghanistan to respond to such a complex question. But undoubtedly insecurity has been, and still is, central to poor health, poor education, poor nutrition and poor rights.
UNICEF is already supporting the development of a centre of excellence for maternal health in Kabul. With our partners, including John Hopkins University, USAID and the Dutch Government, we are supporting an auxiliary midwives training programme in the rural south-east. And, we are committed, to helping rebuild the infrastructure and capacity of the public health system.
I would like to thank you, all journalists gathered here today, for reporting the facts.but I would be even more grateful to you, if you would mediate the cause. in a very pragmatic way. We need a commitment of the international community to save motherhood in Afghanistan. And UNICEF stands ready to play its part.
The world, has talked long and hard, about the decimation of women's rights in Afghanistan during the Taliban era.
It will be an unparalleled tragedy if today, while five women have died in Afghanistan during this press conference, the world does not take measurable action to uphold the rights of women in the new environment of reconstruction, that is restoring hope in afghan families.
Needless to say that the presence of Mr. Tommy Thomson in Kabul few weeks back and here today shows that he takes the problems of Afghan women as more than just a part of his professional mission. He showed a williness to help the condition of women and children and to take them on as part of a deep personal endeavor. This is the kind of leadership we need for Afghan women, and for that, I thank him.
The first steps have been taken, led by significant contributions by Japan, Australia, Belgium and Denmark. But more must be done. We must invest now, at the highest possible level, to make the herstory of Afghanistan, a story of life, a story of hope, a story of success.
To you today, I ask:
if not this, ..what?
if not now,..when?
if not you, ..who
