International Women’s Day

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this debate and on her speech. I use my few minutes to talk about women, development and health in the poorer countries of the world. I will draw attention to two major, continuing problems facing women in these countries, and the way in which women are building their own future and are truly worthy of celebration today. I start by following the noble Baronesses, Lady Tonge and Lady Massey, on maternity. At the time my mother was born in 1915, a woman in this country had about the same chance of dying in childbirth as is true in many poor countries today. For example, in Bangladesh it is about 1 in 200 or 250. That is not an extreme example. In places likes Afghanistan and Sierra Leone a woman has a 1 in 8 lifetime chance of dying in childbirth. I mention my mother because so much has changed. The difference is extraordinary from 1915 to now. We know how to make the difference: the science is the same. This is about science and resources. We know how to treat a woman in pregnancy to ensure, by and large, that she and the child have a safe outcome. However, there are deeper issues here. At least half the problems in many poorer countries are about social issues. They are problems such as in northern Nigeria where women cannot leave the house without permission of the man and so cannot get to services. They are issues about contraception, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, already mentioned, where the simple truth is that the more pregnancies a woman has, the more she is at risk of dying in childbirth. Some very interesting research has been done on this; for example, in Ghana, where a study looked at three different communities where women had different degrees of autonomy and independence. It was interesting to note, as one would perhaps predict, that in those areas where women had less independence and less autonomy, maternal mortality and maternal morbidity were higher. There is a similar and less well known fact about blindness. Eighty per cent of blindness is preventable or treatable; 90 per cent of it takes place in poorer countries. Here again, we know what to do. We know what the scientific and technical issues are and we know what resources are needed, yet—and this is much less well known—women are about twice as likely to go blind. This is not about genetics; it is because women are more at risk with childcare, more in contact with disease, more in contact with dirty water and more likely to get diseases such as trachoma, that awful blinding disease which strikes the eyelids. They are hit in a second way, because they are less likely to get treatment. I suggest that these two examples around health are similar to other diseases and that there is a great need for further social change. These social issues which affect women’s lives are not just about men’s behaviour and male hierarchies, although they are fundamentally important. African women friends tell me how much of a role women play in child-birthing practice, in how girls are educated and brought up in family traditions and in the things which constrain them and their opportunities. There is an echo here, I guess, of the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, about the attitude of women on political selection panels of 30 years ago. These are genuinely societal issues. In drawing attention to these problems, I recognise that today’s debate is about celebration. In development circles, we all know how micro-finance, the giving of small loans and credit to women, is leading to extraordinary economic growth and extraordinary improvements in societies through the opportunities that it provides. We also know that the education of women is probably the most important health intervention that one can make. The evidence suggests that if a girl has five years of education, her child is 40 per cent more likely to make it to the age of five. We can see this throughout poor countries, with many wonderful examples of women individually and collectively leading the way. I think of Ghana, where the Queen Mother’s Association—your Lordships may reflect on how many other countries have a Queen Mother’s Association—is taking the lead in tackling maternal mortality. I acknowledge the part played by Sarah Brown as patron of the White Ribbon Alliance in advocating and working with First Ladies globally to help them to lead on this issue, although I note the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in her remarkable speech, that First Ladies and Queen Mothers are dependent on monarchs and presidents who are normally men. I see the importance of education also in the women of Bangladesh with lesser status, who have massively reduced childhood death from water-borne diseases through a shared programme of education. One sees it everywhere in the growth of small businesses and in the development of the arts and cultural activities. There is much to celebrate and much still to work for.