FEBRUARY 21 — Malaysia signed as a signatory of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women ( CEDAW) in 1995 and with it joined the Global community in an agreement to works towards elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. These includes many aspects where women can be discriminated upon.
It encompasses areas such as employment opportunities and benefits, family rights, educational opportunities, healthcare, reproductive rights and other relevant concerns.
The CEDAW committee in Geneva is now reviewing Malaysia’s report on its progress towards achieving these important goals for the 2nd time, the first report was back in 2004, that is 14 years ago.
It has been 23 years since Malaysia had signed the convention and there are progress in better opportunities and much less discrimination towards women in many areas.
However, one of the Fundamental areas which impact women and girls and could change their lives permanently for better or worse is in the area of access to Reproductive Healthcare and the right to factual Reproductive information.
Access to reproductive Healthcare is still patchy with the use of Contraceptive at only 52 per cent and modern contraceptive use at just 34 per cent. These figures had not changed over the last 2 decades.
In addition, the use of highly effective Contraceptive methods is even lower with a dismal rate of less than 1 per cent for Implants for example which is considered the most effective methods. There had been very little governmental efforts in trying to improve these rates by public campaigns, investing in more highly effective methods, training healthcare professionals in offering these methods, making sure that all women and men understand the benefits of family planning, dispelling myths and misinformation among the public and similar strategies.
On the contrary there are efforts to encourage higher births rates since the Fertility rate of the country is falling, putting Malaysia at risk of an aging population.
With the low rate of contraceptive use, the result is a High rate of Unintended pregnancies with its associated outcomes such as miscarriage, abortions and unplanned live births.
It has been estimated that 14 per cent of Unintended pregnancies ended in abortion in Malaysia.
Many women who had unplanned births suffer higher risks of complications such as premature delivery, anaemia and babies with restricted growth. This is in addition to the lost of job opportunities, inability to continue working , loss of income and its associated consequences.
Another critical area whereby girls and young women are still very much discriminated is in the right to factual information about reproductive health and access to reproductive healthcare when needed.
Malaysia’s official survey showed that 4.8 per cent of 13 to 24 years old are already sexually active with only an average of 50 per cent who knows about basic reproductive health information and contraceptive methods.
These results in more than 12,000 teenage pregnancies annually, the majority of them unintended and unwed. The extreme outcome of these unintended pregnancies is baby dumping with an official figure of more than 100 annually, a figure which had never reduce for the past decade. It is also worthwhile to note that these official figures are only the “tip of the iceberg” as many more may end up not recorded or aborted where there are no figures.
The Reproductive Health education in schools doesn’t include information about pregnancy prevention methods such as contraception and there is very little inter-governmental agencies collaboration in the provision of Comprehensive sexuality education. Many efforts are ineffective, clouded by untrained persons delivering information in moralistic and non factual terms.
It is high time now, especially when the 14th General Election is coming that we consider Girls and Women as the Greatest assets any nation have and invest wholeheartedly in their Well being, giving them real factual information and access to critical Reproductive care in an Unbiased, Non moralistic overcloud.
If we cant do that, then the report to the Geneva committee leaves a big critical gap.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
