In Afghanistan, A Woman Dies of Pregnancy-Related Causes Every 27 Minutes

[tekisui]

Source: BBC

video at link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8329839.stm

In Afghanistan, a woman dies of pregnancy-related causes every 27 minutes of every day.

In 2006, the Afghan province of Badakshan had the worst ever recorded rate of women dying in child birth, 600 times higher than in the United States.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, more international aid has reached this remote area to build clinics and train midwives, but the grim statistics still have not changed much.

[Echo In Light]

1. Sweet Jesus, that's grim

:(

[Nikki Stone1]

2. Thank you CIA.

Before Brzezinski and Carter drew the Soviets into Afghanistan, Afghan women went to university and had lives. The worst and most destructive elements were fostered to create a permanent war zone.

[Bobbieo]

3. If this trend keeps up - we won't have to fight in Afghanistan much longer

as there will be no one left to fight.

[Barack_America]

4. That was amazing.

Not quite sure what to say about it.

To me, the way Afghan women are treated is horrifying. But it's their culture and they are entitled to it. Yet maternal death is clearly recognized as a problem, and where there is agreement, there is hope. Young women, mothers themselves, are being sent for education to help with this problem. Men trust women to save the lives of their wives. Here the cultural adherence to modesty and the cloaking of women before men may be an advantage. Women must be the solution, given the sensitive nature of the subject. To that end, the education of women is encouraged and that is a good thing.

Next step, the understanding that many of these tragedies can be avoided by allowing girls to develop into women before marriage.

[uppityperson]

5. "it's their culture and they are entitled to it"? Aside from that, education is

a big part of the answer, along with figuring out how to survive without having to revert back to the extremist crap. It is such a poor area of the world, so difficult to survive there.

How is wearing burqas an advantage? serious question, thanks.

[Barack_America]

6. It is not for us to impose our culture on them.

We are in agreement that the deaths of women in childbirth is a tragedy. This is something our culture knows a lot about (even if we don't necessarily practice it in our own country, at least not for everyone). Regardless, they are clearly interested in learning more about what we know about this. Considering helping a women in childbirth requires not only viewing, but touching a woman's genitalia, Afghans appear to be more comfortable in leaving this to women. Hence, at least in this instance, Afghan value of a woman's "modesty" is an advantage towards building women's education and stature.

Do you think some global entity should swoop down and forbid the marriage of young girls, and possibly mandate a McDonald's in every village, while they're at it?

[uppityperson]

7. I agree, with the Taliban are only recent historical culture, imposed upon them.

I think some global entity, multi-multi-nationals, should get together and help figure out a way to increase survival, food, jobs, education, health care in such a poor, impoverished, difficult to survive in place.

Hold the snark please. There are not easy answers and I also don't think that simply putting more troops in there to fight off the "bad guys" are in any way helpful. The area has a whole lot of trouble, difficult to grow enough to survive so grow poppies, lots of fears and issues.

Edited to add "it's their culture" sometimes doesn't work. Look at the deep south in USA and the bigotry there. Should we have simply said "Oh, it's their culture to lynch those scary black guys?" and just let that go? How about the genocide in Rwanda? Not to mention the holocaust? I see Human Rights, to a point, as universal and worth working towards improving.

Edited to change it to Human Rights.

[Barack_America]

8. The answer is to be realistic about the pitfalls of our own culture...

...and offer what we think can be of use when asked for it.

This is such an opportunity, IMO.

And I apologize for the snark, but often DU reads like FR, with people condemning other people's way of life and saying we should *do something* to impose our ideals on everyone else.

I think we may have both misinterpreted each other's posts.

:hug:

[uppityperson]

9. Yup. I think we agree, just talking more about it.

trying to figure out wtf should be done, wtf can be done. It is a mess there, as well as here in a different way. Afghanistan is such a poor place. Historically it has been better than now, not sure if there is any way to help it without a huge amount of effort, resources, etc.

No McDonalds for sure, and no consumer society, worshipping the almighty dollar. Just human rights. I am a cynic, have thought for a long time that homo sapiens will go extinct in not a whole lot longer, or rather mostly extinct.

Have you ever read Octavia Butler's books? Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents? From wiki: "Parable of the Sower is a futuristic, dystopian, science-fiction novel. In its reality, the United States has devolved back into states and/or city-states warring for the few remaining resources. Life is cheap, and the economy is becoming reborn as company towns."

Pisses me off when reality copies fiction as one of the reason these books were written is to get people to look at what is happening and try to avoid it.

Edited to add, just rambling on here, sorry