Gender Across Borders

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The Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Situation Report is a monthly column highlighting advances or setbacks in SRHR policy internationally.

This month instead of focusing on a specific country, I’m going to broaden the scope to address a global epidemic– maternal mortality.  Each year more than a half a million women die during pregnancy, giving birth, or in the critical few weeks following birth.  That’s one woman every minute; most die from preventable causes, and most deaths (99%) occur in poor countries.  In fact, the difference between maternal death rates in developing countries as compared to developed countries is absolutely staggering.  Women in the developing world are 300 times more likely to die in childbirth than their counterparts in industrialized countries.  According to a UNICEF report, “A woman in Niger has a one in seven chance of dying during the course of her lifetime from complications during pregnancy or delivery. That’s in stark contrast to the risk for mothers in America, where it’s one in 4,800 or in Ireland, where it’s just one in 48,000.”  In addition to those women who perish, for each death 20 women suffer from illness or permanent injury like fistula.

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Last month, when the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize honorees were named, they included Rizwana Hasan, a lawyer who has worked to hold the ship recycling industry in Bangladesh to higher standards regarding worker and environmental safety. Now comes word that, after five years of negotiations, delegates from 64 countries have reached a general consensus on the shape of an agreement to regulate ship-breaking.

The new agreement, the International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, requires all vessels to carry detailed, regularly updated inventories of hazardous materials throughout their years of service, and for this information to be provided to recycling facilities. The convention calls for workers at these centers to be equipped with a wide range of protective gear, for the centers to have disposal procedures for hazardous materials and for emergency response plans to be prepared. (New York Times)

Great news, right? Well, maybe . . . Read the rest of this entry →

The Goldman Environmental Prize specifically notes pursuit of environmental justice as part of the work it honors, and the efforts of this year’s recipients clearly illustrates the connection between environmental and social issues.

Rizwana Hasan was recognized for her work with the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association combating abuses of laborers and the environment by the ship-breaking industry in which ships used and owned by citizens of wealthy nations are dismantled for scrap by impoverished workers who have little protection from exploitation or the safety and health threats posed by these often toxic hulks. Read the rest of this entry →