Luckily enough, women’s rights have improved a great extent deal over past centuries. Once, women were just expected to look after their household and rear children, but overtime women have become more involved in careers and excelled in those. Globally, countless women have achieved superior positions in politics, as great professors, writers, doctors and or even in just their respective workplaces.
However, it is not the case everywhere. In many countries, many nations still women are subjugated in various forms. It’s not that unusual anymore to flip pages of the newspaper to find cases of rapes, domestic violence, suicides due to eve teasing, sexual harassment and what not. Just within last year in Asia there have been major incidents such a girl being raped by a teacher in, several gang rapes, girls being harassed, beaten or even shot to death just for voicing their opinion; to name just a few. Similar stories occur all over the world, somewhere, everyday, only it does not get publicized. Although, the laws and government do put in a lot of effort to address these and other issues related to gender inequality, women continue to lag behind men in almost all aspects. Except for a calculable number of countries, children still take their father’s surnames, which is probably the he most common and simple example of the existing patriarchy. Men are still the head of the family, the higher income holder and thus with the strongest voice. Resultantly, women automatically become the weaker one in the family and eventually in the society also affecting maternal health in the process.
Not only just after marriages, discrimination of women due to this “insecured” society where it is unsafe for women to travel alone at night, leads to young girls are pushed into bearing the burden of marriage at a very early age, i.e. adolescent marriage. Young girls at the age of 10-19 gets separated from education are therefore unaware of their rights related to reproduction and sexuality which includes topics such as family planning, delayed childbearing, uses of contraception, treatment of fertility, interruption of unwanted pregnancies, breastfeeding etc. Consequently, she falls prey to complications in child-birth arises causing both the lives of the young mothers and infants to be threatened. Thousands of women continue to lose their lives in pregnancy and childbirth; while many suffer pain, ill health and permanent disability as a result of pregnancy related problems. Besides, an estimated 215 million of them lack access to modern contraception. Also up to 20 million unsafe abortions are performed on women, of whom 70,000 die every year. Not only just that, in case of planned pregnancies even, every single women carrying the children in their wombs deserve their husband’s attention, support, care and concern. After all, the father’s duty begins from the very second the baby is conceived. Just because the baby is inside the mother, it does not mean that he does not have any responsibility. In fact it is his duty to ensure his wife is taking nutritious meals, medications on time and routine check-ups to the doctor. In addition, every man should also respect their wives decision in family making and has no authority to force them to take children unless she is willing to.
It is astounding; despite playing the versatile roles of a daughter, a wife, a mother, a home maker and also a sincere employee at work, women are discriminated. With the motto of not just counting people, rather making every people count The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo was a milestone in the history of population and development, as well as in the history of women’s rights. With the aim of providing universal access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health services and reproductive rights, delivering gender equality, empowerment of women and equal access to education for girls, addressing the individual, social and economic impact of urbanization and migration and supporting sustainable development along with addressing environmental issues associated with population changes, a total of 179 countries have achieved remarkable success.
Nonetheless, to guarantee that no mother dies due to deficient of proper treatment, there is still a long way to go. Women need to be educated and made aware of their rights so that they can raise their voices when necessary, so that they do not lose their lives due to their husbands’ blatant ignorance or the obnoxious behavior by the men domineering in the society. Dear women, nobody will wrap your rights in a box and give it to you; you have to be bold and seek it for yourselves. Till the day you consider yourself a minority, you are going to be marginalized. Be bold, be brave and voice your rights. Gift a little independence to yourselves. PPD wishes you all a very happy and sovereign women’s day!
Rakshinda Huq, PPD