Investing in Women the Right Thing to Do, Clinton Says
(Speech honors International Conference on Population and Development) (932)
By Charles W. Corey
Staff Writer
Washington - Investing in female health is not only right but also smart, and that is why the United States is integrating women's issues into its Global Health Initiative and Global Food Security Initiative, says U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton made that point in a January 8 speech commemorating the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development.
The secretary said the need to make women's empowerment a foreign-policy priority motivated her to appoint Melanne Verveer as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women issues. "It is why we are launching women's entrepreneurial efforts through Pathways to Prosperity in Latin America. ... It is why we are working with religious leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan to increase access to information about family planning and preventive health care," she said.
"We are doing all of these things because we have seen that when women and girls have the tools to stay healthy and the opportunity to contribute to their families' well-being, they flourish and so do the people around them," she told her audience.
Clinton cited a story from Uganda, where the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is working with the International Planned Parenthood Federation to provide reproductive health services, education and skills training to low-income women.
"Among their clients are a group of teenage girls who call themselves the 'Moonlight Stars.' Their parents are dead, leaving them the sole providers for their younger brothers and sisters. Without any other options, they were working as prostitutes. Through this USAID-funded program, they gained access to condoms and comprehensive sex education to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy. They also began taking classes in sewing and knitting and other kinds of skills that could be used to help support their siblings without endangering their physical or emotional well-being. And thanks to this job training and the support that accompanied it, many of the Moonlight Stars have left prostitution behind and embarked on a new path of opportunity for themselves and their families."
Failing to invest in women has consequences, Clinton reminded everyone. "In societies where women's rights and roles are denied, girls are forbidden from attending school or they pay a very heavy price to try to do so. ... Poverty, political oppression and even violent extremism often follow."
Maternal and child health are particularly important indicators of broader progress, she said. "In recent years, we've learned more about the conditions that accompany political unrest. It turns out that one of the most constant predictors for political upheaval is the rate of infant mortality. In places where the rate of infant mortality is high, the quality of life is low because investment in and access to health care are often out of reach. And that breeds the kind of frustration, hopelessness and anger that we've seen."
The Obama administration knows the value of investing in women and girls, and understands the direct connection between a woman's reproductive health and a productive, fulfilling life, Clinton said. "So we are rededicating ourselves to the global efforts to improve reproductive health for women and girls. Under the leadership of this administration, we are committed to meeting the Cairo goals."
The "Cairo goals" are the four goals set at a 1994 meeting of the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development: universal education, reduction of infant and child mortality, reduction of maternal mortality, and access to reproductive and family planning services.
The United States, Clinton said, has pledged new funding, new programs, a renewed commitment to achieve a three-fourths reduction in global maternal mortality, and universal access to reproductive health care.
In the last year, the United States renewed funding of reproductive health care through the U.N. Population Fund, and more funding is on the way, she pledged. The U.S. Congress recently appropriated more than $648 million in foreign assistance to family planning and reproductive health programs worldwide, an allocation that is the largest in more than a decade, she added.
"In addition to new funding," she said, "we've launched a new program that will be the centerpiece of our foreign policy, the Global Health Initiative, which commits us to spending $63 billion over six years to improve global health by investing in efforts to reduce maternal and child mortality, prevent millions of unintended pregnancies, and avert millions of new HIV infections, among other goals."
Noting "the rise of the largest youth generation in the history of the world," Clinton said the initiative would provide this generation with critical information for staying healthy. "The Global Health Initiative will also focus on helping countries strengthen their own health systems," she said. "We want to build sustainable health systems in countries."
Clinton concluded by recounting the story of Caroline Ditina from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, "who for years endured the shame and ostracism caused by obstetric fistula. Eventually, she found her way to a clinic supported by the U.N. Population Fund, and she finally received the surgery, care and emotional support she needed to heal. Then she started speaking out about her experience to fight the stigma and to let other women know that, even in isolated places, treatment is possible.
"Her message has traveled the world. Two years ago, she came to Washington and urged members of Congress to support maternal health programs worldwide. And today, the United States is proud once again to support the work of the U.N. Population Fund."
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