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Be Aware of your rights to Survive:
Women Reproductive Rights

By: Saira Amirali Khimani

On a reproductive health clinical in a maternity ward of a tertiary care hospital, a patient was admitted she was of 30 years. She got married at the age of 22 years. She had two girls and one boy and then she has delivered a baby girl. It was her first post natal day. Her hemoglobin (Hb) level was below normal and she has refused blood transfusion because of fear of unscreened blood. On asking her more about fears and anxiety related to postnatal period, she highlighted very important fear. She told me that she had used almost every family planning method but none of them has satisfying results. She stated that” I had severe headache and got acne on my face when I was using oral contraceptives, when I used injections I got heavy menstrual bleeding. At last when I used intra uterine contraceptive device (IUCD) I suffered from pelvic inflammatory diseases (PID).” She then planned for tubal ligation but the gynecologist said that it could not be possible as her Hb level is very low. Further in the discussion it was revealed that the newly born child was unplanned child.

This incident has changed my perception and attitude towards reproductive concerns of women in our society. Before this incident I have heard a lot about this kind of stories in which husbands are the ruling person and wives are the innocent follower and the victim of their injustice. Those stories give me a picture of poor and illiterate wife and cruel, powerful and illiterate husband. But when I encounter this scenario, my perception and my thoughts changed I realized that not only poor illiterate women are the victim of the gender inequity and injustice but women living in urban areas are also suffering from same injustice although the severity varies. There could be many reasons for these miseries but one of the reason could be the false perceptions and beliefs. As discussed by Ali & khan (2007), “the common beliefs in the inherent superiority of males ignoring the women's autonomy” (p. 28-29). This is the major reason in the above scenario as my client always follows her husband’s suggestion related to the contraception not even thinking that she was continuously harming herself.

As in this scenario husband is the decision maker of the family. Decisions about money expenditure to family planning are usually taken by him. This type of perception is more common particularly in Pakistan and generally in developing countries. Barriers such as discussed by Stephenson and Hennink in 2004 “the poor urban women were shown to be ten times more likely to use a method of contraception if their husbands approve of family planning and less likely to practice family planning if their mothers-in-law reside in the household” (As cited in Clements & Hennink 2005 p. 42). And beliefs such as God determine how many children a family will have. The reason of lack of knowledge among the society is that the husbands are only considered as the bread earner and they are usually not involved in health related issues. Husbands do not accompany the women to the health clinics and therefore they are unaware most of the knowledge and then they make decision which are then prove to be dangerous for mother and child’s health

According to Saleem & Fikree (2005). “Unplanned/mistimed pregnancies as in the above scenario generally result from high unmet need and ineffective use of contraceptives and culminate through induced abortions”(p.291). And these induced abortions indirectly contribute in maternal mortality. These complications are the result of unawareness of reproductive rights in females and males as well. Aahung an NGO is working in Pakistan for the awareness of human sexual rights. Sexual rights which has been violated in the above scenario are “the right to have control on his/her own body and the right to contraception/safe sex”.( http://www.aahung.org/sic/index.htm). Recently in a very underdeveloped community I came across a woman who has tried to burn herself because she did not want to be the sexual partner of already married man who is the father of five children. This shows that unawareness of sexual rights and maternal mortality has a very important relationship. In contrast in our society such matters are kept unaddressed which then lead to domestic violence and separations in the family.

Thus lack of knowledge about reproductive rights among women is one of cause of maternal mortality in Pakistan. Health care professional should play a major role in creating awareness about sexual and reproductive rights in the society.