International Women’s Day

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of Christian Blind Mission. Antoinette Androis, a young woman living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, suffered the devastating loss of a child a few years ago. Forced out of her home for over six years, pregnant Antoinette was left to give birth on a few banana leaves out in the bush. Shortly after cutting the umbilical cord with a machete, Antoinette's husband and some women from the village watched helplessly as the baby girl died in front of them. Antoinette’s latest pregnancy, in 2011, was completely different from her experience in the bush. Thanks to access to a clean delivery kit, distributed to women in the Ituri and South Kivu provinces by Medair and UNFPA, Antoinette was admitted to a health centre and gave birth in a maternity ward assisted by a trained health worker. This time her child survived.

In 2009, the Liberal Democrats reaffirmed their manifesto commitment, which was subsequently incorporated into the coalition agreement, to guarantee giving 0.7% of our gross domestic product in international aid. This aid will save the lives of 50,000 mothers and 250,000 babies by 2015. It has already saved the lives of women like Antoinette and her child, who directly benefit from UK involvement in international organisations like Medair. I am proud to say that today the UK is on target to meeting its commitment.

In 2000, as a signatory to the UN millennium development goals, we pledged to improve maternal heath and reduce child mortality, among other goals, by 2015. The international community has certainly taken big steps forward in tackling each of these eight goals and it is important to recognise the successes. For example, both the goals of reducing by half extreme poverty and the number of people without proper access to safe drinking water have already been met by these efforts. However, we cannot forget that while progress has certainly been made, data that have been disaggregated by sex tell us a grimmer story of continued inequality for women around the world, most notably in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the poorest households in nearly every country in this region, wage earners are more likely to be women than men. UN Women reports further that even when women have access to work, they are,

“often faced with low income and lack of job security and benefits”.

A lack of access to financial resources can have a direct impact on the likelihood of a mother and child surviving a pregnancy. In many places in sub-Saharan Africa, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Antoinette gave birth, overcrowded and underfunded health centres lack sufficient supplies, requiring expectant mothers to provide basic materials like soap, gloves, a razor blade and even a sheet, which are needed to ensure a clean delivery. Women who are unable to afford these supplies or who have not received a clean delivery kit provided by international aid organisations are often turned out to give birth in the bush without assistance because the health centre simply cannot accommodate them or even provide the basic kit.

The three primary causes of maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa—haemorrhage, sepsis and eclampsia —can all be prevented or managed by trained health professionals in a clean environment. However, most clinics are understaffed and overwhelmed by an increasing indigent patient load. The hospital in Boga, where Antoinette gave birth, provides healthcare for over 30,000 internally displaced people who have fled armed conflict. In attempting to treat as many patients as possible, the clinic lacks funding for basic supplies, and thus the burden of the cost of giving birth is transferred to the expectant mothers, who are already struggling with unimaginable poverty.

This cycle can be broken by the continued commitment of the international community, including our Government, to provide funding to programmes that address the two central concerns of women’s health: poverty and training. Through a continued focus on millennium development goal 1 to eradicate extreme poverty, this time for women as well as men, women who would normally be unable to afford even the most basic supplies for a delivery will be able gain access to health clinics.

Secondly, through continued involvement with the UNFPA and Medair to meet millennium development goals 4 and 5, a greater number of health clinic employees and midwives can receive proper training, which will significantly reduce mother and child mortality. Access to training will also provide job opportunities for women in these areas, and through supporting these programmes we can set off a new cycle of training and employment instead of poverty and poor health.

Maternal care must extend beyond the birth of the child. A lack of access to adequate postnatal care can be devastating to women like Dorotea from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Dorotea was a teenager when she became pregnant with her first child. Unable to afford to go to a hospital, she was forced to give birth in her home without assistance from a trained health worker. Neither Dorotea nor her mother realised that the umbilical cord had got wrapped around the baby’s neck, and after four agonising days of labour, her daughter was stillborn.

Dorotea’s heartache continued two days later, when she realised that the stress of the labour had caused her to develop an obstetric fistula—a hole between the bladder and the rectum where the baby’s head had crushed the tissue. Because of her condition she was deserted by her husband, beaten and abused, and she was unable to work or seek help. For 18 years Dorotea suffered the embarrassment and isolation of her condition until one day her sister happened upon an advertisement for Christian Blind Mission services. Her fistula was repaired after 30 minutes of surgery in Dar es Salaam.

Dorotea now has the chance of a normal life, and is even able to have more children, but, thanks to CBM and the services she got, she was given the most important gift of her life: her dignity. CBM and many other organisations continue to set up clinics around the world for women suffering from obstetric fistula, providing them with essential postnatal care unavailable in their local hospitals.

According to the United Nations Population Fund, a woman’s risk of maternal death in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one in 24. In the United Kingdom, the risk of death is one in 47,000. I congratulate this Government on their continued commitment to the pledge of giving 0.7% of GDP in aid, which not only sets an example to our global colleagues that it can be done but, more importantly, will make a real difference and help to reduce maternal deaths.