International Women's Day

On Monday ( March 8) I attended the Parliamentary Mum’s Café, organised by The White Ribbon Alliance and supported by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health.  The event highlighted the hundreds of thousands of pregnant women in many developing countries who find themselves at as great a risk of death in childbirth in 2010, as women in the UK did 100 years ago.

 

The 8^th March marked the 100th year of International Women’s Day.  It’s a day when organisations around the world, including Amnesty International, Save the Children, Oxfam, Mumsnet and White Ribbon Alliance, urge world leaders to make maternal and child health a top priority and ensure that another 100 years do not pass without significant improvement globally.

In 1910, when International Women’s Day was first created, 355 women per 100,000 live births, died as a direct result of childbirth or pregnancy-related causes in England and Wales.  In Scotland the figure stood at 572 while in Ireland, the figure was 531. Today in the UK the number of maternal deaths stands at around 14 per 100,000.

However, recent figures show that in developing countries an average of 450 women per 100,000 live births die in childbirth. In Ghana the rate of deaths stands at 560 while in Bangladesh it is 570, and in Mozambique it is 520. In Chad the number of women dying from pregnancy-related causes stands at a staggering rate of 1500 per 100,000 births – approximately three times the rate of 1910 Britain.

Global figures show that approximately one woman dies every minute – predominantly because of preventable causes related to pregnancy. Women in sub-Saharan African and south Asian countries are most at risk, and very little progress has been made in the past decade.

 

The numbers of women worldwide who are dying and suffering as a result of childbirth or pregnancy-related causes are unacceptable. One woman dies every minute.  This is a shocking and heartbreaking statistic.

 

In the UK in the last 100 years we have made great progress in improving maternal health and maternal deaths are now extremely low.  However, we must ensure that women worldwide are not dying and suffering needlessly of preventable illnesses and a lack of basic healthcare.

 

International Women’s Day is also an occasion to highlight issues of gender equality.  It is an opportunity for organisations, individuals and Government to celebrate the progress made in the past 99 years since the first International Women's Day, but is also an opportunity to look forward to what more needs to happen to ensure the lives of women both in Britain and all around the world are improved.

 

A key clause in the Equality Bill, currently awaiting its Third Reading in the House of Lords, will be focused on tackling the gender pay gap. The pay gap has narrowed over recent years, but women still get paid around 22% less than men.

 

I am proud of the Government’s efforts to curb the gender pay gap and progress has been made.  However, unfortunately too many women still get paid less than men for the same work. I am determined that this must change.