MDG 5, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND MATERNAL HEALTH IN AFRICA
these factors were considered when designing the MDGs. Still, whether
international policy would succeed where international law (in the nature of
human rights treaties) has failed remains to be seen as disparities between
and within countries in terms of both MMR and access to reproductive
health services continue to widen.
Discernible from the foregoing is the reality that maternal mortality is
almost exclusively a Third World problem. Africa and other developing
nations shoulder an alarming burden of global maternal deaths (ninety-nine
percent), with the region and Southern Asia responsible for eighty-six
percent. 38 Strikingly, while Southern Asia has made giant strides, reducing
its MMR to fifty-three percent between 1990 and 2008, sub-Saharan Africa
continues to lag seriously behind, managing to record a miserly decline of
just twenty-six percent within the same period. 39 This means that the least
progress was made by countries in Africa. 40 Why? Getting a firm grip on
this ignoble situation must start with identifying and tackling factors that set
Africa apart from the rest of the world.
III. KEY CHALLENGES AND NECESSARY INTERVENTIONS
I am appalled when I read various reports and publications on maternal
and child health which show that in Chad maternal mortality remains
high. In 2004, 1,099 women died for every 100,000 births, an increase
from 827 in 1996/1997. This high rate of maternal mortality is caused by
factors we fight each day: inequality between the sexes and the denial of
women’s sexual rights; poverty and women’s poor access to health care
services; the high fertility rate; violence against women in all its forms;
young marriages and unwanted pregnancies. 41
A constellation of factors coalesces to perennially hold the maternal
health pendulum in Africa down. The most critical factors, for purposes of
this study, are hemorrhage and hypertension, which together account for
nearly half of all maternal deaths in the region; 42 abortion and obstructed
38. Id.
39. U.N., THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS REPORT 2011 29 (2011),
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/%282011_E%29%20MDG%20Report%202011_Bo
ok%20LR.pdf.
40. Id.
41. Hinda Déby Itno, First Lady of Chad (2009), in Rachel, supra note 3.
42. Khalid S. Khan et al., WHO Analysis of Causes of Maternal Death: A Systematic
Review, 367 LANCET 1066, 1068 (2006) (reporting the following statistics, hemorrhage 33. 9
percent and hypertension 9. 1 percent, for a composite total of forty-three percent); see also
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS REPORT 2011, supra note 39 (listing, in addition to these
causes, having many children, poor education, having children at very young or old age and
gender discrimination).
