It would cost $600 to spare a girl from becoming a child bride

A girl child given bodycare education and provided opportunities to hone self-care skills, participates fully in quality life promoting activities.   This in turn is what makes a mature woman demand services and be engaged in causing better life for self and planned for children in case she is to have them.

We bring you two issues that caught our eyes during this on-going ICPD 25+ Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

SRHR and Women with Disabilities: Bringing Two Movements Together

Women with disabilities have been systematically denied the right to free and informed consent, bodily autonomy and self-determination in making choices about SRH, leading to forced sterilization, abortion and contraception. This underscored why there is an urgent need to ensure SRHR advocacy addresses the rights and needs of women with disabilities. Stakeholders need to lay the groundwork for critical advocacy to address these intersectional rights issues. This session is convened by CREA; Kenyan Women with Disabilities Network; Women with Disabilities India Network.   

Every day more than 800 women die from preventable causes during pregnancy and childbirth

For $115.5 billion, preventable maternal deaths could be ended by 2030, according to a UN report presented yesterday at the International Conference on Population and Development, Thomson Reuters Foundation reports. And for $264 billion, countries could end maternal deaths, gender-based violence, child marriage, and deliver family planning to all women by 2030. The summit’s aim: accelerate progress toward these goals—topping up pledges made 25 years ago at the landmark Cairo population and development conference.

 Countries need about $264 billion - the equivalent cost of 110 military aircraft - to end maternal deaths, gender based violence, child marriage, and provide family planning to all women by 2030, said a United Nations study.

An investment of $115.5 billion - which is equivalent to the cost of 46 high-end military aircraft - would end needless maternal deaths by 2030, researchers said at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Kenya.

The price for ending the 12 million child marriages every year would be $35 billion, they said, adding it would cost $600 to spare a girl from becoming a child bride - the equivalent cost of a one night in a luxury hotel.

Nations have committed to three global goals related to women's sexual and reproductive rights within the next 10 years, but the report by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) found there was a funding shortfall to meet these targets.

To achieve these noble goals, we must work together; we must strengthen local capacities that are critical to making a real difference on the ground; and we must engage local leadership to ensure there are domestic investments and political commitment to this agenda. Raising $264 billion over the next 12 years is a small price to achieve such a transformative change in the lives of women and girls.