ORAL STATEMENT

44^th Commission on Population & Development

ASIAN-PACIFIC RESOURCE & RESEARCH CENTRE FOR WOMEN (ARROW)

12 April 2011

The Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) has been working for the past 17 years to enhance civil society capacities to hold governments and donors accountable to their international commitments related to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) with 26 national partners in 13 countries across the Asia-Pacific region.

The Asia-Pacific region, where we work, is home to 60% of the world’s people and women; two-thirds of the world’s poor;^[1] 62.5% of the world’s hungry;^[2] and 42% of maternal deaths^[3] — and as high as 27% of these maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortions.^[4] We face continuing challenges in age-old issues such as maternal mortality and morbidity and access to contraception and family-planning, which continue to hamper the region’s SRHR achievements.

Although total fertility rates have declined sharply to 2.2 children per woman in 2009,^[5] women from the least developed countries, women with lower education, poor women and women who lived in remote, hard-to-reach areas as well as urban slums, have less access to contraception and hence, less control over fertility, and have more children than they themselves actually desire. Socio-economic inequities are closely inter-linked with higher rates of unintended births. The region still lags behind in access to range of contraceptive methods, and service provision guided by informed choice on contraception methods and information on side-effects. Trends of low condom use reflect existing gender power imbalances^[6] and unmet need for STI/HIV prevention is acute amongst married and unmarried people.

Amongst the marginalised groups, it is critical to point out that unintended pregnancies among adolescents and young women in the region are high, with some Pacific countries having the highest in the world. Almost 1 in 10 girls become pregnant by age 16 in South and Southeast Asia. Many countries continue to demonstrate reduction in unmet need for contraception, however data calculations on contraceptive prevalence rates and unmet need, in our region, continue to leave out younger and unmarried women within their survey samples hence under-estimating unmet need and limiting necessary interventions such as accurate, reliable, comprehensive, evidence-based sexuality information, education and services to this critical group.

Despite having 60% of the world’s deprived people, donors seem reluctant to invest in the region – Asia receives the lowest per capita assistance of all regions - $12 compared with $45 for Africa – which calls for better allocation of resources.^[7]

This will be a critical decision as the Asia-Pacific region faces many challenges.

One, the economic crisis is anticipated to result by 2015 in:

• as many as 892 million people in the Asian-Pacific region are projected to remain in extreme income poverty if current trends continue,^[8]
• this will further exacerbate existing inequalities and inequities and negatively impact women’s access to sexual and reproductive health including in current indicators.^[9]

Two, we will also see new and emerging challenges such as disaster,^[10] conflict and fragile states, climate change which will affect the region’s poor disporportionately.^[11] In emergency situations, sexual violence against women increases drastically; to ensure a full range of sexual and reproductive health services for women within these contexts also calls for provision of emergency contraception and safe abortion services access for women.

Three, rising religious conservatism and the concertisation of the power of religious conservatives within the state, together with local contexts that drive this politicisation of religion, is negatively impacting the sexual and reproductive health of women, as well as their rights.

We hope that you will take this into consideration in your deliberations and ensure renewed and reinforced commitment to the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action and to ensure:

1. universal access to affordable, quality, gender-sensitive, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services through functional and integrated health systems, especially for the marginalized and socially excluded populations.
2. and the right to the highest attainable standards of health and sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights remain a priority for women, especially marginalised groups of women, despite contexts of economic crises and emergency situations.
3. and that the international community allocates and fulfills adequate concrete funding commitments for these vital sexual and reproductive health and rights issues in the Asia-Pacific region.