KABUL (SW): The United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) has noted in its latest report that a very small number of women in Afghanistan have access to higher education and family planning means.
The report The State of World Population 2017 has warned that unless inequality is urgently tackled and the poorest women empowered to make their own decisions about their lives, countries could face unrest and threats to peace and to their development goals. It stated that failure to provide reproductive health services, including family planning, to the poorest women can weaken economies and sabotage progress towards the number one sustainable development goal, to eliminate poverty.
In Afghanistan, the poorest women have the fewest options for family planning, the least access to antenatal care, and are most likely to give birth without the assistance of a doctor or midwife, it added. According to the Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey, only 23 per cent of currently married women use a method of contraceptive.
“Inequalities in Afghanistan are a significant multiplier of the various challenges the country faces”, said, UNFPA Afghanistan Representative, Dr. Bannet Ndyanabangi, “for Afghanistan to tackle inequalities there is need to invest more in reducing inequalities in education and reproductive health and rights, to allow women and girls to choose to stay in school, when to get married and when and how many children to have.”
“Population trends in Afghanistan are unfortunately not very promising, particularly when it comes to educational disparities in higher education among boys and girls, employment of women versus men and women’s overall contribution to the economy of the country”, said Javed Rasooli, Director General of Central Statistics Organization of Afghanistan, “However, the Afghan government is committed to filling these gaps and reducing inequalities at all levels”, he added.
The report underlined that with 5.3 total fertility rate (Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey (AFDHS), 2015) Afghanistan has number of unintended pregnancies, especially given the low use of modern family planning methods, which harms girls’ and women’s health, robs them of opportunities for education and joining the labour force or have a paid job.
On the other hand, early and child marriage, high fertility rates with little birth spacing contributes to the striking high maternal mortality in Afghanistan, that is currently estimated in the range of 1,291 per 100,000 live births (AFDHS, 2015).
ENDS
