Empowering Rural Women Focus On Safe Motherhood

By Jhabindra Bhandari

IN a developing country like Nepal, where majority of the population live in rural areas relying heavily on subsistence farming, the development scenario in the remote areas of the country presents a gloomy picture. Widespread poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and political conflicts have made all parts of rural life even more miserable. More importantly, the impacts of all these development problems are apparently visible and, truly women and children are most affected.

Challenges

Women who constitute almost half of the total population of the country are still facing many problems and challenges. In a male dominated society like ours, rural women have low social mobility, access to and control over resources and poor participation in decision making process in all aspects of development activities. They have overburdened with the increasing household activities, farming including care of children and elderly. Even, socio-economic opportunities to women are constrained with the male dominating attitude in almost all societies. The most worrying point is that their recognition of work and strength is almost ignored.

Due to illiteracy and poor health status, rural women suffer most. In the recent years, participation of women in social, economic and political aspects have been increasingly raised by policy makers, planners, development workers and civil society organisations. Greater awareness of gender equality and equity and the attempts of mainstreaming gender equity in all aspects of local development initiatives are the emerging needs and priorities for sustainable development.

Similarly, many rural girls and women do seasonally migrate to cities for economic opportunities. However, they are most vulnerable to trafficking and have been even trafficked to India and other countries every year - especially from the remote hill districts. Ultimately, they suffer serious sexual harassment and exploitation at the workplace. There are enough evidences of many women returning to home country with serious psychological and health problems - especially sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.

Despite all these ground realities, community development programmes of local NGOs and INGOs have been, however, crucial in most of the areas of their intervention - that largely focuses on empowerment of rural women through education, capacity building and income generation opportunities. These efforts are truly effective to raise confidence of rural women through their active participation in development programmes. Much of the savings and credit schemes, micro-finance and income generation initiatives of rural development banks have yielded positive impacts on the rural livelihoods.

In a country like Nepal where maternal mortality is 539 per 100,000 live births - one of the highest in the world, achieving safe motherhood is the mounting challenge ahead. Every year, a large number of rural women die due to pregnancy related complications during childbirth. The causes are mostly evident due to poor accessibility and availability of reproductive health services in the remote health facilities. Similarly, neo-natal and infant mortality rate are considerably high in the remote parts. With the limited primary health care services, the larger population of rural women have been seriously facing poor access to safe motherhood services in the district hospitals, primary health care centres, health posts and sub-health posts.

Maternal deaths have very serious consequences within the family, given the crucial role of mother for her children and welfare. Such deaths, undoubtedly, increases the risk to survival of her young children. Realising the gravity of such a huge social tragedy in the country, the health ministry is focusing safe motherhood as an important strategy to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. Attempts from government, NGOs and external development partners are continuously being made to promote women's health and safe motherhood. In this context, empowering rural women with the education and knowledge of danger signs of pregnancy and timely referral to health facilities is extremely essential.

The importance of safe motherhood is apparently clear. Complications related to pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of mortality for women of reproductive age in many parts of the developing world. At the global level, it has been estimated that about half a million women die each year of pregnancy related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries. And, hence the gap in maternal mortality between developed and developing regions is wide.

According to World Health Organisation, the risk of dying from pregnancy or child birth related causes 1 in 20 in some developing countries, compared to 1 in 10,000 in some developed countries. The worth noting is that the age at which the women begin or stop child-bearing, the interval between each birth, the total number of life time pregnancies and the socio-cultural and economic circumstances in which women live all influence maternal morbidity and mortality. Therefore, there are urgent needs of socio-economic investment in safe motherhood.

The Crux

Ultimately, the crux of the matter is: empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of their political, social, economic and health status. Improving the status of women enhances their decision making capacity at all levels. There is no doubt that education is one of the most important means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to participate fully in the development process. This must be the agenda towards achieving sustainable development.

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