Off the wire
• Roundup: Canadian stocks fall as miners weigh, healthcare tanks  • UN chief urges Israel to reverse land seizure in West Bank  • Interview: Mankind could attempt landing on Mars in late 2030s: Italian scientist  • Washington subway to shut down for 29 hours for inspection  • Czech U-21 football team nominates roster for European championship qualifiers  • Roundup: U.S. stocks end mixed ahead of Fed statement  • 25 percent of population in Zimbabwe affected by drought: UN relief agency  • Chinese envoy calls for int'l efforts to improve security situation in Afghanistan  • Zuma unable to comment on alleged job offering by Gupta: presidency  • Kenyan university to host China-funded culture center  
You are here: 　 Home

Over 225 million women who want family planning can't get it: UNFPA

Xinhua, March 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

More than 225 million people who want access to family planning cannot get it, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin said here Tuesday.

Osotimehin made the remarks at a press conference held to mark the appointment of American actress Ashley Judd as UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador.

The UNFPA is the arm of the United Nations which focuses on family planning, or in other words ensuring women can decide when and how they become pregnant, and ensuring safe pregnancy and child birth for women and babies.

"The basis of all sustainable development is a woman and her family's ability to regulate her own fertility," Judd told the press conference.

Judd also highlighted other issues affecting women and girls within the family, including interpersonal violence and access to education.

"My experience around the world is that everyone loves their family, and the family is also unfortunately often the scene of extraordinary interpersonal violence," she said.

Judd said that the "solution lies in massive attitudinal shifts towards girls and women," and can be helped by access to secondary education.

"For every additional year of secondary education a girl's income increases by 10 to 20 percent, that supports her family and actually creates increases in a country's GDP," she said, referring to gross domestic product.

Osotimehin described other ways that girls are disadvantaged within the family, particularly in poor countries and conflict zones.

"More than 300,000 women die every year giving life," said Osotimehin. Sixty percent of the women who die from pregnancy or childbirth related causes are in emergency or so-called fragile situations, such as refugees and other women fleeing conflict, he said.

Child and early marriage, and female genital mutilation are also concerns for girls and young women around the world, said Osotimehin.

"More than 37,000 girls under the age of 18 are married each day around the world," he said, "(and) over 130 million girls and women live with the consequences of female genital mutilation."

Access to family planning has also become an issue for families affected by the Zika virus. Osotimehin said that the first advice to all women, men, girls and boys in the affected areas was to be informed about the virus and to avoid mosquito bites.

However, he also said that women living and visiting the affected areas need to use family planning, and that men too should use condoms because it is now known that Zika can now be spread as a sexually transmitted disease.

The World Health Organization declared the cluster of microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders reported in Brazil, a public health emergency of international concern on Feb. 1, but the exact connection between babies born with microcephaly and Zika virus is still subject to scientific study.

Judd is known for her acting career in film and television beginning in the 1990s. She also has a master's in public administration from Harvard University. Enditem