Picture you're nine months pregnant. You go into labor and where do you go? There is no one to help, so kiss the epidural and medical facilities goodbye; you're on your own. It's the sad reality many women are living.
With constant battles of fighting against crises around the globe, it's unsafe to even step outside the boundaries of your home, if even that is still existent. You are forced with no other option than to deliver the baby yourself risking both lives with complications.
There are currently over a 100 million people around the world that are in desperate need of humanitarian aid, one quarter of which are women who fall under the reproductive age according to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) annual State of World Population report issued Thursday.
That faction of 25 million women and girls deal with increased danger threats to their maternal mortality, sexual and gender-based violence, and sadly child marriage due to the unfortunately diminished sexual and reproductive rights. For women and girls, reproductive and sexual health is just as vital as basic necessities such as water and shelter.
Countries suffering the most outbreaks of humanitarian crises, predominantly in Africa and the Middle East, gender inequalities are already considered mainstream, so they're only exacerbated when thousands of people are ostracized by a tragedy. When women are seen as second rate to other citizens, it only seems to translate that their individual needs wouldn't be measured or they would be pushed to the corner when a disaster hits. "Pervasive gender-inequitable norms underlie the invisibility of women's needs," explains Jesse Rattan, director of CARE's sexual reproductive health in emergencies global program.
Although some may see it as second nature, many people don't bother to think about the fact that women don't have a "shut down" button for preventing pregnancies or having babies when a crisis strikes, as the UNFPA report discusses. Without proper access to health care, pregnant women become more prone to infections, miscarriages, premature delivery, stillbirths, unsafe abortions, severe long-term morbidity, and even death. With all the strings attached to childbirth, health systems may be compromised, as well as safety, due to clinics being dangerous in addition to a possibility of health personnel being killed off due to an attack in the community.
A lack of food after a disaster is a definite with everyone being affected, but it becomes particularly hazardous for pregnant women, as malnutrition and undernourishment not only can lead to complications giving birth or breast feeding, but it can lead to maternal mortality due to an increased risk of developing a serious illness.
Women who are already pregnant are not the only ones stripped of their sexual and reproductive rights during disasters and conflict, all women and girls have an increased need of birth control and contraception when it's the least available. "Family planning is a life-saving intervention: it prevents unintended and unwanted pregnancy and in turn reduces health risks of childbirth and recourse to unsafe abortions," the UNFPA report says. Despite the terror of the earthquake in Haiti, the pregnancy rate in campus was three times higher than in cities before, with abut 66 percent of pregnancies unwanted or unplanned. With this being said, condoms aid in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
In all types of humanitarian obstacles, from earthquakes to ISIS's bloody terror parade, women experience the greatest terror, sexual violence. When people are sleeping with no boundaries of protection, even something that seems harmless such as walking to the bathroom becomes a target. Gender-based violence is manipulated as a weapon of war for ethnic cleansing and because of the shame attached to rape in many cultures. One should remember one thing, no woman or even man, for equality's sake, can call themselves free, if they don't even have the ability to control their own body.