http://www.publishaletter.com/readletter.jsp?plid=28151Dear Editor: Today is International Day for Action on Women's Health (www.cafra.org/spip.php?article459) With over half of the world population living under $2 per day and increase in corporate control, conflicts and climate change/disasters it is good to examine what are poor women's health demands, and what is the international discourse on women's health. When I went to Sri Lanka in the heights of conflict to Vavuniya three years back, poor ethnic Tamil women were filled with fear not only for their lives, but the survival of their sons and daughters who were waging a struggle. They could not sleep properly. The wives of Army men were worried whether their husbands would return. When I visited Thervoyil village in Tamil Nadu, India this year, where the previous regime had (as per records shown to me) given forest land to Industrial park (housing MNCs) without permission of Gram Sabha dalit women were brutally hit. One woman, even after three months, was suffering from painful shoulder, another from back pain. Women whose husbands and sons have been wrongly booked, suffered from high blood pressure. The police did not book cases against the women but only men and youth. When I visited Nepal three years back women in the hill areas complained of uterine prolapse having to walk long distance to gather fuel, fodder, water etc. Things had become worse after climate change. Sex selection of males and sex selective abortion of females had spread from India to terrai belt. Poor women who were lesbians complained of discrimination by parents, teachers, employers on their sexuality and consequent mental stress, and inability to discuss their health problems with doctors who assumed that heterosexuality was the norm. Substance abuse by men, wife battering (all over south Asia) and acid attacks were reported in Bangladesh. When I visited Moldova several years back poor men/mothers complained that their wives/daughters had gone were trafficked to Western Europe for sexual purposes. Yes there were complains of lack of access to good quality health care in public services (and without under the table payments) everywhere including to access maternal health, but a question is why do Millennium Development Goals reduce women's health to maternal and reproductive health (including contraceptive prevalence rate) and HIV prevalence amongst youth male and female (which is a symptom of uneven development, migration and male irresponsibility). ARE POOR WOMEN NOTHING MORE THAN WOMBS AND A DEVICE FOR POPULATION CONTROL? ARE MEN NOTHING MORE THAN ANIMALS? unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Host.aspx?Content.../OfficialList.htm It is time to visibilize General Comment 2000 of the International Covenant of Social, Economic and Cultural (ICESC) Rights which calls for rights of everybody to highest standard of physical, mental and social well being. Further it calls for addressing socio-economic factors that promote conditions in which people can lead a healthy life (http://www.hospicecare.com/resources/pain_pallcare_hr/docs/GenCom14.pdf) In fact it is time to move this covenant to ICESC Justice and ensure that every poor women, dalit or non dalit, in hill area or other areas etc have the right to SAME standard of health and social determinants. Public financing and provision by accredited institutions is the model. Equally it is time to evolve a non violent paradigm beyond unfettered capitalism/global imperialism and communism which is based on pedagogy of oppressed which challenges neo liberalism, corporate control, ethnic cleansing, climate change, casteism, patriarchy, homophobia et al and control over poor women's bodies and health. ICESCR fails to question the unipolar paradigm of development. It also fails to mention about missing girls or declining child sex ratio
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