Nancy Velazquez Jordan Litaker

The India Project Staying in Uniform Access to Birth-control Gender Equality: Health and Education  Women in Niger have a 1 in 7 chance of dying in childbirth.  Overall, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the lifetime risk of dying in childbirth is 1 in 22.  Women in India still have a 1 in 70 chance of dying during childbirth.  The United States, the risk is 1 in 4,800.

 Pilot program in some areas of India are paying $15 to poor women to deliver in health centers.  In addition, rural health workers get a $5 bounty for each woman brought in for delivery.  Vouchers are also provided so that pregnant women can get transportation to the clinic.  The proportion of women delivering in health centers rose from 15 percent to 60 percent and mortality plunged.  After delivery, women were more likely to return to the health centers for birth control and other services.

 Sometimes the most effective approaches aren’t medical at all.  A South African study found that giving girls a $6 uniform every 18 months increased the chance that they would stay in school  Consequently, significantly reduce the number of pregnancies they experience.  Uniforms delay marriage and pregnancy until they are better able to deliver babies.

 IUD’s and the Pill were only available by prescription from a doctor.  Which meant that some of the most effective forms of contraception were unavailable to 99 percent of the population.  Midwives could talk to a woman and either give her a prescription for the pill and are authorized to insert IUD’s.

 Gender equality will only increase if there are significant investments made in health and education to women.  Sri Lanka is the perfect example: saving mothers has been a priority.  89 percent of Sri Lankan women are literate, compared to just 43 percent across South Asia.  Educating girls resulted in them having more economic value and more influence in society.  Established a major network of trained midwives (18 months), spread across the country and each serving a population of three thousand to five thousand.  Today, 97 percent of births are attended by a skilled practitioner and is routine, even for village women to give birth in a hospital.  Sri Lanka has brought down its maternal mortality ratio down from 550 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births to just 58.

 This is more than a political problem, it is a human rights issue. “Women might just have something to contribute to civilization other than their vaginas” -Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia Also seen in Half the Sky