Malawi: President urges UN to Focus on Women’s Rights
By Henry Neondo
NEW YORK--Malawi’s President, Joyce Banda has called for a focus on the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people in her first speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, telling her high-level peers that, “The biggest threats to security and peace are poverty, lack of opportunity and lack of hope.”
“I have experienced the struggles of the poor and the suffering of a Malawian woman,” Banda said in her speech. “And I have championed the advancement of the oppressed and marginalized, fought for the rights of women and children, campaigned for the betterment of the rural and urban poor…I can attest to the fact that the experience of a poor and disadvantaged Malawian is intimately intertwined with that of Africans and indeed with that of the least developed countries.”
For Malawi’s new president, the battle for women’s rights in particular has a personal dimension. Banda walked out on an abusive marriage, choosing to raise her three children in a safer home environment. After remarrying, she suffered a post-partum hemorrhage when giving birth to her fourth child.
She knew she would have died if not for medical treatment inaccessible to most Malawi women today. Banda tells her story in a book entitled, Why We Care, launched at an event organized by the Global Leaders Council and the UN Foundation.
“When we empower women with education and access to reproductive health services, we can lift an entire nation,” Banda said in an opinion article published in the Press.
“Women who can choose when to have children and how many they will have are more likely to complete their education, start small businesses and participate actively in society...This is why efforts to improve the lives of women and children reinforce efforts to strengthen our economy and reduce poverty.”
This week, advocates for family planning services are urging a newly formed United Nations special panel to make reproductive health services central to the next-generation goals it will propose for reducing poverty and boosting sustainable development. The panel meets this week for the first time, and will present recommendations to the UN Secretary in 2013.
One of the high-level leaders of the Global Leaders Council, Banda became President after the untimely passing of her predecessor in early April. She has spent the last five months engaging with donor countries and aid organizations and spearheading family planning efforts in Malawi.
Her new Initiative on Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood will provide better access to reproductive health services for women in Malawi. The goal is that girls in Malawi—15 and 16 years old—will stay in school instead of having children themselves.
Malawi was one of four recipients of this year’s Resolve Award, a highly competitive, non-monetary prize given by the Global Leaders Council to recognize innovative and workable approaches by governments that are striving to achieve universal access to reproductive health. In addition to Malawi, the other 2012 winners were Ethiopia, Nepal, and Rwanda, with a special mention given to Yemen.
Despite the progress reflected in such awards, many nations in the developing world continue to face an uphill battle in providing women with the means to choose how many children to have and when to have them.