Mrs. Mondlane pays a visit to Fanaka at the legal office to get advice on how to prevent her daughter Chisisi from being married off at a young age. Together with Bahati, they use the SADC Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage to help Chisisi and other girls who are in a similar situation.
Click here to learn more about child marriage.
Bahati and Fanaka are young advocates who are working to end child marriage in their community. In this episode, we learn how the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage can help them and other advocates to champion equal access for girls to education, health and rights.
This video forms part of the Wait to Wed Video & Comic Book Summaries.
Click here to learn more about child marriage.
On 20 January 2020, Regional Directors for UN agencies in East and Southern Africa held a joint press conference on their agencies' responses to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Mozambique, where more than half a million people have been displaced by the violent conflict.
This animated video by the World Health Organization (WHO), HRP and UNFPA shows what progress has been made since the groundbreaking International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994, and the prospects for sexual and reproductive health and rights in the next 25 years.
Just 25 years ago, it was recognized that fulfilling the rights of women and girls lies at the heart of sustainable development. This global consensus was reached at the ground-breaking International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo. Governments recognized that unless women have control over their own sexual and reproductive health, real progress would not be made.
While advancements have been remarkable since then, in many countries they have been slow and uneven. At the Nairobi Summit 25 years later, we celebrated the unique opportunity to build on the momentum of the ICPD. Here, we look at progress in East and Southern Africa on four transformational results, as well as the gaps that remain.
Eritrea is a vast country with many remote villages. Without transport, a pregnant women may have to walk 30 kilometres to give birth safely at a health facility. This is why UNFPA, in partnership with the Government of Eritrea, has built 41 maternity waiting homes across the country to ensure that when women are ready to deliver, they are already close to a health facility. The homes provide them with access to medical care when they need it and ensure them of a place to stay prior to their delivery.
Eritrea is one of the few African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal mortality by 45 per cent. Now the government aims to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of fewer than 70 preventable maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.
A large portion of the Eritrean population lives in extremely rural parts of the country. Here, underage marriage and female genital mutilation are still practiced. Mothers are often forced to deliver their babies at home, risking complications such as obstetric fistula. This is a major injury following prolonged and obstructed delivery, leading to the constant leakage of urine and/or faeces through the vagina.
Fistula is prevalent in Eritrea, especially among girls who find themselves in a position of marriage and pregnancy before the age of 18 years. The Campaign to End Fistula started in Eritrea in 2003, with the support of UNFPA. Since then, more than 1,700 fistula repairs have been successfully conducted. Graduating doctors are also required to be able to perform emergency Caesarian sections to prevent fistula.
This video shows the difference UNFPA's intervention to surgically repair and socially reintegrate women suffering from fistula has had in their lives.
This is the story of Fatima, 6, who is about to undergo female genital mutilation in her village in Gash Bakar. Learn how UNFPA is fighting FGM in Eritrea, where it is widely practiced, with an overall prevalence of 83 per cent (Eritrean Population Health Survey, 2010). However, this is an improvement from 89 per cent in 2002. These achievements are the result of a collective approach to abandonment of the practice, which was outlawed in all forms in 2007.
The evidence is clear: When girls are given the power to make an informed choice about marriage, they marry later. Laws are an important first step, but programmes are also needed to empower girls with information about their rights and educate parents about the benefits of keeping their daughters in school.
As more and more women, girls, men and boys learn about FGM and its harm, opposition to the practice is growing. In the last two decades, the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who want the practice to stop has doubled.
Somalia-born Ifrah Ahmed campaigns to end female genital mutilation. Here she describes her fight to end this injustice against women and girls.
