Out of Cairo: forging a new population policy
Coleman, E.; Reardon, C.
Ford Foundation Report 25(3): 33-35
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 1063-7281 PMID: 12288278 Document Number: 269777
The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was the first where thousands of women contributed to the agenda. The previous emphasis of population policies on the simple provision of family planning (FP) services has led to abuses such as coercion to have only one child in China or financial incentives for undergoing sterilization in India. The 1994 ICPD Program of Action provides a more humane basis for population programs by emphasizing the fact that women have fewer children when they are educated and gainfully employed. Thus, improving women's reproductive health and social status has become a central issue, and widening access to contraception remains an important objective. In addition to the 500,000 women who die of pregnancy-related causes each year, half a billion suffer infections of the reproductive tract. By failing to address these problems, many FP services actually exacerbate them. In Giza, for example, although 39% of 500 women studied used contraception (45% of those married and living with their husbands), only 1 in 7 was free of gynecological problems, urinary tract infections, and syphilis (50% had at least 2 of these conditions). The women who used contraceptives were no healthier than their neighbors who did not. Once FP clinics attempt to tend to reproductive health issues, they encounter cultural and religious constraints. For example, a woman may obtain an IUD and then suffer from severe side effects rather than return to the clinic for attention. Another woman may become infected from an illegal abortion obtained at her husband's insistence. The infection may preclude an IUD for months, so the woman may obtain oral contraceptives from a pharmacy although she knows her high blood pressure should preclude their use. Full implementation of the ICPD Program of Action would improve the status of women such as these, fostering their self-esteem, their access to education and employment, and their participation in the political process; eliminating violence against them; and making them aware of their legal rights. The success of the readjustments in FP programs, government resource allocation, and family structures which will accomplish this task will depend largely on the women who helped put reproductive health on the ICPD agenda.