Archive: Term of service 06 October 2006–04 October 2010

Speech
United Nations, New York 03 March 2010
Nyamko Sabuni, Minister for Integration and Gender Equality

Opening speech at the Swedish side event "Gender Equality and SRHR - a way to move forward on Millennium Development Goal 5".

Check against delivery.

Mr/Madam Chair, Excellencies, Distinguished delegates,

It is an honour for me to address the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. This session marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995. Sweden supports the statement made by Spain on behalf of the European Union.

Giving birth to a child should be one of the greatest moments in a person's life. When a mother dies in connection to child birth or pregnancy, it is an enormous tragedy.

To fight maternal mortality and disability as a result of pregnancy and childbirth should be a priority for every country and government.

Even though the international community have made commitments, in the past 20 years we have not come close to realising Millenium Development Goal 5, improved maternal health. You are familiar with the statistics. Half a million women and girls die each year as a result of pregnancy child birth. This equals that one women or girl dies every minute.

Around 99 percent of this death occur in the least developing countries. What does this tell us, if not that these deaths could have been prevented. A significant part of the maternal deaths are due to lack of access to safe and legal abortions, especially in Africa. 70 000 women and girls die as a result of unsafe abortions and an unknown number die as a result of female genital mutilation.

This is a serious human rights issue. Women and girls die because political leaders do not focus on women´s health. Because resources are not provided. Because women are denied the right to their own bodies and sexuality.

Furthermore negative norms associated with masculinity are also part of the problem which result in unsafe sex, unwanted pregnancies and potential unsafe abortions.

The aim with this meeting is to discuss about what the key factors are that can lead to a realisation of MDG5 and what actions the various stakeholders should take in order to accelerate the process forward. I would like to use this moment to introduced the Swedish view on this issues.

In June 2009, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a landmark resolution recognizing that maternal death and injury are preventable and unacceptable. I am very pleased that altogether 70 UN member states co-sponsored the resolution and thereby agreed to enhance their efforts at the national and international level to protect the lives of women and girls worldwide.

This meeting takes place at the moment when we celebrate the agendas 15 years after Cairo and Beijing. It gives us the opportunity to agree on a more ambitious agenda for SRHR and gender equality.

A comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) approach including maternal health and safe abortions has since long been a priority for Swedish international development cooperation. The total Swedish support to development cooperation in the health sector in general including HIV/AIDS and research amount to approximately 530 million USD. In 2009 Sweden decided to dedicate an additional 13 million USD as a special effort to tackle maternal mortality.

The point of departure for the Swedish special effort is the need for both immediate and more long-term measures to improve maternal health and to reduce the persistently high maternal mortality in low income countries.

Sweden prioritize interventions in the following four thematic fields:

  • Strategic work to change national policies and legislation in relation to womens and girls' right to adequate maternal health care services. One example: Sweden has provided support to IPAS an international abortion organisation which has led to awareness raising among parliamentarians to partly legalise abortion in Ethiopia.
  • Work to strengthen health systems regarding maternal health service delivery. One example: Sweden has extensive exchange between Swedish and Indian midwives. This has resulted in an increased number of midwives in India.
  • Education and capacity building of maternal health personnel with a special emphasis on professional midwives. One example: International confederation of midwives met in Sweden 2008 where a large number of African midwives was trained. As a result of this training the African midwives made abortion an additional competence for midwives.
  • Improved infrastructure for transportation and communication. Example: Sweden is supporting a number of programmes that effectively build up the infrastructure in order to support womens access to health care.

To achieve best results the Swedish special effort is based on effective partnerships with civil society and the private sector, both in Sweden and in recipient countries.

I am very pleased to have some of our partners at this side-event. Each one of us are stakeholders in a common commitment to put a stop to maternal mortality and I believe that the panel today may describe various approaches to this alarming problem.

Thank you.