Carolyn Hardy, chief executive of UNICEF Australia, in the SMH today:
Some half a million women die in childbirth each year around the world. The deaths are almost entirely contained to poor nations. It is estimated up to 80 per cent of these death are preventable.
Why are we failing? Why are maternal death rates remaining stubbornly high?
A key reason for this is patriarchal. It is the ”dark little secret” of poverty today. We too often ignore the discrimination that goes on in communities directed against girls. It is the equivalent of the glass ceiling in industrialised countries, but in developing countries it is deadly.
Today the face of poverty is a woman or a girl.
They are the least likely to be in school, the most likely to miss out on food or medicine. It’s been tagged the ”Cinderella principle” – the girl in the family only gets to go to school or to get medical treatment after everyone else has been looked after.
I would strongly recommend reading the whole thing.