Afghanistan sees one maternal death every hour - WHO

[ArabellaScott]

https://amu.tv/237859/

'The World Health Organization says that every hour, a mother dies in Afghanistan from preventable complications, a stark measure of a health system still struggling to protect women during pregnancy and childbirth.

In a statement issued on International Day of the Midwife, the agency said Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate remains among the highest globally, at 521 deaths per 100,000 live births, even as access to basic care has improved over the past two decades.
Many of these deaths are caused by conditions that are treatable or preventable, including hemorrhage, hypertension, infection and obstructed labor, the WHO said. For women who survive such complications, the consequences are often long-lasting and severe.
The WHO said Afghanistan has seen measurable progress in maternal and child health since the late 2000s. Antenatal care coverage has increased from 31 percent to 76 percent, and the share of births attended by skilled health workers has risen from 24 percent to 67 percent. Child mortality has also declined significantly, dropping from 129 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 56 in 2023, the agency said.
Still, those gains have not been evenly distributed, the WHO said, with women in rural and underserved areas facing the greatest risks.
One of the most serious complications is obstetric fistula, a condition caused primarily by prolonged obstructed labor that can leave women with chronic medical problems and social stigma. The WHO said the condition remains underreported, as many women lack access to specialized care or are unaware that treatment is available.
To address these challenges, the WHO, with support from the Islamic Development Bank, said it is expanding maternal and child health services across Afghanistan. The initiative includes training health workers, improving access to care and establishing specialized treatment centers.
Two fistula treatment centers have been established in Kabul and Kandahar, offering surgical care as well as rehabilitation and support for reintegration into society. The program is expected to directly assist about 300 women and indirectly benefit up to 300,000 women and girls of reproductive age, the WHO said.
More than 977 health workers have also been trained to improve maternal and newborn care, with a focus on preventing complications and ensuring timely treatment, according to the WHO.
“No woman should be left without care during pregnancy and childbirth,” said Edwin Ceniza Salvador, the WHO representative in Afghanistan.'

stark measure of a health system still struggling to protect women during pregnancy and childbirth
I doubt the Afghan authorities are doing much ' struggling to protect women'. Not to mention fistulas being caused by repeated child rape and child pregnancies and births.I don't know why suddenly so many people are hand wringing over the obvious consequences of Taliban policies now when no one bothered with it when they were imposing their ridiculous abusive regime.

Obviously this is terrible but this article is shit.

'barriers preventing women's access to care' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there _ would suggest the Taliban and their destruction of basic human rights for women is a pretty big part of that.

Why do so many articles not name the oppression of women for what it is? In Herat, there is a proscription that any woman seeking or providing medical help needs to wear a burqa. Female aid workers have been banned - so the recent report that one aid agency lost 97 of 100 female staff, so there are 3 women remaining to do the same job formerly 100 female staff did.

Women can't receive medical care from men supposedly. I'm sure there are good men disobeying this, but why is it not mentioned here?

And I simply don't believe the statement 'access to care has improved over the past two decades'. The averaging will be doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I suspect 'access to care' has really worsened since 2021 for women to a vast extent.

Yep, you said it better than me.

What is the point of this article if you're not going to name deliberate human rights abuses of women and stripping away women's rights.

The Taliban clearly couldn't care less how many women die in childbirth.

I doubt they even have good data from 2021 to now because the Taliban won't allow many aid agencies to access unless they ban female staff.

I don't know what this Amu website is, seems to be expat Afghanis but is based in the US. I was sharing for the stats, not the article.

Here's teh WHO source article

https://www.emro.who.int/afg/afghanistan-news/who-and-isdb-strengthen-lifesaving-care-for-women-and-children-in-afghanistan.html

Yes, I understand that. I'm betting the stats pre 2021 are a lot more complete and reliable than post 2021 though. I'm not sure how much reliance can be placed on them.

I do find it utterly bizarre that they're talking about data from 2007 onwards as if nothing significant has happened to change the landscape for access to care (and indeed collection of data) for women in this time. When we KNOW it has since 2021.

I find it quite disturbing in an 'we were always at war with Eastasia' kind of way.

Hard for aid agencies to balance maintaining access to the country with criticism of the govt I guess.

Yes. As this article shows Taliban edict on female aid staff pushes Afghan women dee...

We know lots of aid agencies are misogynistic, I wish we'd get more scrutiny of this.

A humanitarian official at the Islam Qala border warned that accepting the Taliban’s rules in Herat will prompt the group to enforce them across Afghanistan. “This will cause a lot of harm to the humanitarian work at the border. Even if we have 50,000 women coming through, we only have three women to serve them,” the official said.
“[Accepting the Taliban’s conditions] is very dangerous because potentially it sets a precedent. The other risk is that we have excluded 50% of the population from receiving services, and that breaks the humanitarian principles that we serve everyone and are impartial. If we do this then we are not impartial and we are not independent.”

In a statement, Save the Children said it suspended its operations on 3 November, in line with the UN’s decision, and resumed “limited operations” in the health clinic only on 13 November alongside other agencies and the UN.
The statement added: “This joint clinic has both female and male health workers from multiple humanitarian organisations, including from Save the Children.
"Save the Children is strongly advocating for our operations to fully resume at the Islam Qala border with female and male staff. [We remain] committed to upholding and implementing our humanitarian principles, while making sure that our programmes continue to operate in compliance with local laws.”
Zarifa Ghafari, the former mayor of Wardak province, who is now working as a human rights advocate in exile, warned that any foreign organisation ceding to the ban on female aid staff at Islam Qala “sends the message that the world will eventually adjust to the Taliban’s demands. That is dangerous, and it is wrong.”

Bolding mine - Well done Zarifa Ghafari.

But unfortunately as we see from the weasel words of Save the Children where they don't mention the numbers of female and male health workers just that there ARE both, so that's fine then (you know hundreds of men and one woman just so they can say there's one and pretend they're treating women, which they probably won't be), it might not be wrong. Aid agencies may in fact be giving up on treating half the population of Afghanistan and pretending they're not really doing that. This is participating in the oppression of women.