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<p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> WUNRN_LISTSERVE-owner@lists.wunrn.com [mailto:WUNRN_LISTSERVE-owner@lists.wunrn.com]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>WUNRN LISTSERVE<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, October 22, 2017 8:45 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> WUNRN ListServe <wunrn_listserve@lists.wunrn.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [WUNRN] Worlds Apart: Reproductive Health & Rights in an Age of Inequality - Gaps in Women's Health - State of the World Population 2017<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">WUNRN<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.wunrn.com/">http://www.wunrn.com</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Direct Link to Full 140-Page 2017 UNFPA Report:<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/UNFPA_PUB_2017_EN_SWOP.pdf">http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/UNFPA_PUB_2017_EN_SWOP.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><img border="0" width="495" height="122" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image005.png@01D34ABE.32D09B10"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><img border="0" width="487" height="614" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image003.png@01D34A60.6DEEF8D0" alt="cid:image003.png@01D34A60.6DEEF8D0"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/10/inequality-beyond-wealth-gaps-womens-health/">http://www.ipsnews.net/2017/10/inequality-beyond-wealth-gaps-womens-health/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">An Inequality Beyond Wealth: Gaps in Women’s Health<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#20759D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333"><img border="0" width="485" height="323" id="Picture_x0020_4" src="cid:image007.jpg@01D34ABE.32D09B10" alt="http://www.ipsnews.net/Library/2017/10/a-mother_-629x419.jpg"></span><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#999999"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:4.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:7.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:11.25pt;background:white">
<b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#090909">A mother and her child from West Point, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia. The 10-worst countries to be a mother in are all in sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: IPS<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#20759D">By
<a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/author/tharanga-yakupitiyage/" title="Posts by Tharanga Yakupitiyage">
<span style="color:#20759D;text-decoration:none">Tharanga Yakupitiyage</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#090909"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#444444">UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 2017 (IPS<b>)
</b></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">- While many often focus on wealth disparities, economic inequality is often a symptom and cause of other inequalities including women’s access to sexual and reproductive
health.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">In a new report, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) explores the persistent, if not widening, inequalities in sexual and reproductive health around the world, holding back women and girls
from a productive and prosperous future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“It’s not just about money,” Editor of UNFPA’s report Richard Kollodge told IPS.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“Economic inequality reinforces sexual and reproductive health inequality and vice versa,” he continued.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Despite its recognition as a right, access to sexual and reproductive health is far from universally realized and it is the poorest, less educated, and rural women that continue to
bear the brunt of such inequalities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Globally, women and girls in the poorest 20 percent of households have little or no access to contraception and skilled birth attendants, leading to more unintended pregnancies and
higher risk of illness or death from pregnancy or child birth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">In the developing world, 43 percent of pregnancies are unplanned and this is more prevalent among rural, poor, and less educated women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">These inequalities are particularly prevalent in West and Central Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">In Cameroon, Guinea, Niger, and Nigeria, use of skilled birth care is at less than 20 percent among the poorest women compared to at least 70 percent among the wealthiest.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The lack of power to choose whether, when or how often to become pregnant can limit<br>
girls’ education, delay their entry into the paid labour force, and reduce earnings, trapping women in poverty and marginalization.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“The absence of these services in these women’s lives leads them to be poor or makes them even poorer,” said Kollodge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">A woman with no access to family planning may be unable to join the labor force because she has more children than intended.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">In high-fertility developing countries, women’s participation in the labor force remains low, from 20 percent in South Asia to 22 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Once in the paid labor force, underlying gender inequalities lead to women earning less than men for the same types of work.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Though the gender wage gap has decreased in recent year, women still earn 77 percent of what men earn globally.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">At the current pace, it will take more than 70 years before the gender wage gap is closed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Further gaps can be seen for women who have children—a “motherhood penalty,” Kollodge said—as well as for women of color and those with less education.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Illiterate people earn up to 42 percent less than their literate counterparts and a majority of the world’s estimated 758 million illiterate adults are women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">This can also be traced to harmful gender norms that keep girls from school, and creates a vicious cycle that keeps women in the bottom rung of the economic ladder and without access
to sexual and reproductive health services.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">If all girls stayed in and received secondary education, it’s estimated that child marriages would decrease by 64 percent, early births by 59 percent, and births per woman by 42 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Among the countries that have made most progress is Rwanda, which has effectively closed the gap between poor and rich households in access to contraception.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Kollodge told IPS that Rwanda’s achievement shows that a low-income country can advance access to sexual and reproductive health.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“The policies that [countries] adopt really make a difference. There are things you can do, regardless of your GDP, to improve well-being and reduce inequality in sexual and reproductive
health and rights,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Rwanda’s success is partly due to the expanded availability and integration of family planning services in each of the country’s villages and health centers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">But inequality in sexual and reproductive health is not just a developing country issue, Kollodge noted.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">In Texas, maternal mortality rates jumped from 18.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2010 to 35.8 deaths in 2014, the majority of whom were Hispanic and African-American woman.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Meanwhile, the government is working to repeal health coverage which risks returning to a time where many insurance plans considered pregnancy a pre-existing condition, barring women
from getting full or any coverage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Already, the Donald Trump administration has rolled back access to contraception, affecting up to 60 million women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Elsewhere, the U.S.’ decision to cut funding to UNFPA is affecting the health and lives of thousands of women.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">In 2016, the government provided 69 million to UNFPA programs, helping avert almost one million unintended pregnancies and prevent 2,300 maternal deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“Any reduction to UNFPA has a direct impact on women and adolescent girls in developing countries,” said Kollodge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The report calls to make information and services more available and accessible and recommends a number of actions including increasing access to child care which can help women join
the labor force and climb out of poverty.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">This will lead to not only better reproductive health outcomes, but also a healthier economy and society as a whole.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“If you eliminate these inequalities in accessing sexual and reproductive health and thus give women control over their own lives, you are going to make a lot of headway in economic
inequality,” Kollodge told IPS.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">He said that though eliminating inequalities in sexual and reproductive health alone will not be enough, countries will never achieve economic inequality if half of the world’s population
lacks access to health services and rights.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“And if you continue to have extreme economic inequality, it drags down whole economies and prohibits countries from rising out of poverty fast enough to achieve the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs),” Kollodge continued, pointing to SDG 1 which aims to end poverty by 2030.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;line-height:12.75pt;background:white">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The internationally adopted SDGs also include a goal to reduce inequality within and among countries by accelerating income growth of the poorest 40 percent of the population at a rate
higher than the national average.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">“If you don’t do that, you are never going to achieve shared prosperity,” Kollodge said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">____________________________________________________________________</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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