The Bare Facts - Health

Women's Health

• Reproductive health services for all women would cost $12billion a year – as much as we spend on perfume in the US and Europe every year (Alan Guttmacher Institute)

• Around half of pregnant women in Southern Asia and a third of women in many countries in Africa receive no antenatal care ( UNAIDS)

• 55% of all HIV positive adults in sub Saharan Africa are women (indiafemalefoeticiede.org)

• Annually 2 million girls worldwide are forced into marriage (secondsightresearch.tripod.com)

• Annually 2 million girls between the ages of 5 – 15 are abducted, sold or trafficked into the illegal sex market (international humanitarian campaign against the exploitation of children)

• Globally women account for the majority of people aged over 60 and over 80

• Pregnant women in Africa are 180 times more likely to die than in Western Europe

• AIDS sees women's life expectancy at 43 in Uganda and Zambia

• In India, 25% of girls die before they turn 5, mostly starved or neglected.

• In India, one pregnant woman dies every 5 minutes, during childbirth.

• In India, baby girls are considered an economic burden, because of the high cost of weddings. While sons provide income and are seen as a type of insurance by their parents.

• Every year, more than 530,000 women die from pregnancy-related causes – that’s one every minute.
If this continues at the current rate, another 4 million women will die by 2015.