Women bear brunt of poverty

Womens rights activists in Malawi are concerned that investment in their development gets to small a share of the nation’s resources in a country where women perform 70 percent of all farmwork in the major smallholder agriculture sector. They said they were concerned about the health of women in the smallholder sector in which the majority of Malawian women work. This is because of the added burdens men do not have to face - child bearing and raising, firewood and water collection, and household chores. A spokeswoman at the National Commission for Women in Development said the lack of resources for women was “reflected in the lack of adequate access for women to maternal and child health care, family planning information and services, education, training and skill development for employment.” The majority of women also lacked access to information regarding their health and nutritional status. “Despite this,” se said, “30 percent of Malawi’s households are headed by women, both in rural and urban areas. These families depend almost entirely on the labour income of the female head for its basic survival and well-being.” Another worrying factor was the primary school drop-out rate. According to 1995 figures, the drop-out rate of 6 percent for girls was three times higher that the 2 percent rate among boys. The causes of this, she said, were mainly the desire to keep girls at home for work, early pregnancy and marriage. Women also faced cultural pressures to bear children for their husbands. “The median age of marriage is 18 years, and with the crude birth rate at 42.9 per 1,000, about 51 percent of women have a child or are pregnant before the age of 18, while the average interval between births is 2.3 years,” she said. With a fertility rate of 6.7 per woman, it is estimated that Malawi’s population of about 11 million will double in the next 20 years. She said 92 percent of adults knew of at least one method of contraception, although only 7.4 percent of married women and 12 percent of married men were currently using contraception. Maternal health was another “worrying factor”. Recent figures published by the Commission showed a maternal mortality rate of 620 per 100,000 live births, with complications of miscarriage or abortions at 18 percent, prolonged or obstructed labour at 20 percent, excessive bleeding in pregnancy or childbirth at 25 percent, while infection following delivery amounting to 13 percent. “Almost all these deaths could be avoided if women had access to, and used timely maternal health care services of adequate quality,” the activist added.