Maternity Health and Gender Inequality

I want to focus a little on the inequality women face in Benin. A little bit about their history with inequality, in 1992 the government accepted the UN's proposition The International Convention of the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women which states that all the different act that define discrimination and the different things by which the countries should abide by: 

• to incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
• to establish tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
• to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises

Then in 2004 a Code of Persons and Family was put in place that enables women to  inheritance, property and the outlaw of forced marriage and Female Genital Mutilation.

This has helped some but not so much in the rural areas, the women there don't really know about their rights, so they are still living under traditional law. And the law enforcement is still holding women accountable for what now is now a law.

The first issue that I would to address is the practice of Vidomegon, where poor families send their daughters off with a wealthier family where they believe that they will be better off and receive an education. The problem with this is that many of those girls experience sexual abuse, they become servants or are even exposed to human trafficking. 

"Formerly, it was customary for wealthy families take care of children from their parents to take care to give them a good education and training for social and professional life."

most of these children were treated awful, while they were doing their jobs, their  host family would beat them for making the slightest mistakes. No days it has become a business for both parties. Many children were also transported to neighboring countries

In Nigeria these children are treated as convicts. It was after much work from both police forces from Benin and Nigeria that they were able to bring back hundreds of Beninese children.

Proposition: 

I understand that they want to help their children have a better life so this is why they do it, why they place their daughters in strange homes, I would dare say that most of these mom's and dad's love their children and it hurts them to place them away from them, but they believe they are doing their child a favor by doing so. I think that we should help these poor families survive and thrive in what little they have. 

With those families that are less fortunate in Benin, I believe that perhaps children should get a free education. This would only happen if they were assigned a "social worker" of some sort who would come to them and their families once a year.

This social worker would have to make sure they had some sort of requirements that they had to pass before they were granted free schooling.

1. They had to have the grades and the discipline necessary to put school work first and show the school and social worker that they deserve going to school.
2. what ever their family did, whether they planted some crop they had make sure they were working hard all year to produce it, they couldn't just not work.
3. the child in it's latter years has to become a tutor for another younger student who is in the same programs as well. 

Maternal Health:

Background on Maternal Health system in Benin:

The county has a total of 34 health facilities which is good except for the fact that only HALF of them are functional. It only encompasses 8% of the government's budget, which is clearly not enough. each household accounts for 52% of budget. Most of the staff is under qualified and they are distributed unequally. About 77% of the population live within 3.1 miles of a health center. only 45.4% of those living within the 3.1 miles use the facilities. Over 33% of the doctors in Benin work at the university which is in the capital, the number of trained and qualified doctors around the rest of Benin is very small. Benin's national budget only allows 1 doctor for every 19,000 people. 

Statistics:

• maternal mortality rate: 350 deaths for every 100,000 live births
• 97.2% women give birth at a health facility but 22% of births still occur in the home. (mainly in rural parts of Benin and in the poorest homes.
• In 2000 only 16% of married women (15-49) used contraceptives.
• Average number of children each woman has is 6
• 45% of women give birth before the age of 20 and less than five are being supervised by a doctor.

Issues: Many of the women living in the rural areas of Benin don't have easy access to qualified health centers in Benin

What has been done:

in 2012 more than 500 women protested that they don't get the care needed while pregnant and they also argued to the authorities for the inadequate health infrastructure and the under-qualified staff. They cried out " this is the reason why women are dying."

(The first stop for the women was Djougou town hall where the message was brought to the Mayor. Upon receiving it, he made a commitment to forward it to the district heads of Atacora and Donga as well as the President. 

He congratulated and encouraged the women of Micah Challenge for the importance of the message and showed support for the community of Djougou, who he said were acting in the interest of the whole country. 

Then the women headed to the community health center to carry the same message to the local health minister. Just like the Mayor, he promised to work towards reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. ) micahchallenge.org

Proposition:

I believe that those 17 health facilities that aren't running should be cleaned up and running as soon as possible. But this will only be possible if the government ups the health care system's budget. Through charities or service projects, men and women should be brought into Benin or volunteer to come help them rebuild or do whatever it takes to get the 34 facilities they do have up and going.

something else that would help those that live further, especially in the rural areas of the country would be if they have transportation, being realistic and knowing that cars won't work, some charity or Church organization could donate bike, they could even be use bike to the villagers of Benin, this would help them get place much easier and quicker. 

They also need to make sure that the staff working in the medical centers are QUALIFIED, this is so key, because the blind can't lead the blind, by this I mean, you can't adequately help when you don't know what you are doing. This could be accomplished if the doctors working would take the time to come into the small villages every 6 months to check how things are going and to continue teaching and educating new doctors and nurses. 

http://www.wikigender.org/index.php/

http://www.slateafrique.com/731/vidomegon-enfants-esclaves-benin
http://www.who.int/countryfocus/cooperation_strategy/ccsbrief_ben_en.pdf
http://www.micahchallenge.org/component/content/article/95/625-improving-maternal-health-in-benin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_Benin
http://www.projectbokonon.org/purpose/benin.medinfo.html
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=100&v=2223&l=en