MDG 5, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND MATERNAL HEALTH IN AFRICA
the region. It contends that by litigating pregnancy- and childbirth-related
issues; engaging in mobilization campaigns; ensuring or demanding
transparency and accountability at individual and institutional levels; and
directly providing health and ancillary services, these organizations can
significantly impact the march toward maternal health nirvana in Africa. In
Part V, the paper projects a health based approach as the key to vanquishing
the factors that impede actualizing the health and wellbeing of women in
the region. It identifies specific provisions of applicable regional and
international human rights regimes as well as the jurisprudence and
interpretive statements of implementing bodies of these regimes. It argues
that incorporation of the provisions and authoritative statements should
guide national efforts at meeting their obligations regarding the health and
wellbeing of women within their respective jurisdictions. Part V concludes
that adopting the remedial measures posited at various junctures in the
paper will go a long way in positively transforming the health and
wellbeing of mothers throughout Africa, thereby propelling the region
toward MDG 5.
II. THE STATE OF MATERNAL HEALTH IN AFRICA
In the last quarter of 2011, a woman employed in a local bank was
admitted to hospital to give birth. The personnel in charge believed that
she could deliver the baby, who was in breech position, by simply
pushing. It weighed almost six kgs, and she could not; she died trying on
the hospital bed, and her child died too. Another woman, a housewife,
was admitted to the hospital prematurely because of heavy bleeding. She
lay there bathed in her own blood under the indifferent eyes of the
midwives until she passed away. These terrible tragedies occur on a daily
basis and affect both rural and urban women. 30
An apt starting point in assessing the health status of mothers in Africa is
to note that regarding civil and political rights, women throughout the world
have attained lofty heights, 31 but there have been no commensurable
30. Rachel, supra note 3.
31. For instance, increasing attainment of education by girls and women and the
growing number of women in legislative and high profile government positions in various
countries around the globe, including, most remarkably, Islamic countries. United Arab
Emirates (UAE) presents the most radical example. Up to twenty-three percent of its
parliamentary seats are held by women – that is, in a country where women had neither the
right to vote nor the right to stand for elections barely six years ago in 2006. See UNDP,
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009: OVERCOMING BARRIERS: HUMAN MOBILITY AND
DEVELOPMENT 186 (2009). In Africa, apart from the increasing number of women in
electoral and appointive positions, a number of women are now at the helm of affairs in their
countries, including Malawi President Joyce Banda and Liberia President Ellen Johnson
