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Read, Debate: Engage.
Up to 830 women die daily while giving birth. Over 33,000 girls are forced into child marriages every year, with 11,000 being subjected to female genital mutilation annually. Yet as these injustices and atrocities against women continue in 2019 and well into 2020, there hasn’t been enough action to put robust laws in place to prevent this and provide a safe world for women and girls.
It is therefore laudable and timely that the recently concluded International Conference on Population and Development, ICPD in Nairobi Kenya, took deliberate attempts at accelerating actions, 25 years since the premier conference took place in Cairo Egypt. Having mobilised more than 9,500 delegates from over 170 countries, the statement that was made was that the world is united in leaving no one behind on sexual and reproductive rights.
The commitments to end all maternal deaths, unmet need for family planning and gender-based violence and harmful practices against women and girls by 2030 are indeed bold, ambitious and costly, estimated to cost the world $264 billion.
Yet the resolves that have predominantly not been met since the Cairo conference are now facing new headwinds with ten countries – among which are the U.S., Uganda, Egypt and Brazil – opposed to the resolutions of the ICPD25, arguing that the use of the phrase ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ promotes abortion and sex education.
The countries are therefore pushing for the resolutions to be dropped because they do not enjoy international consensus. While these are varied points, the international community should advance compromise in transforming these crucial deliberations into action for the sake of women and girls who deserve nothing short of dignity and security. The world cannot afford to let them down again.
