INDIAN MATERNAL MORTALITY FIGURES & CHILD FATALITIES

Every 7 minutes a woman dies due to childbirth complications’

From Kounteya Sinha | TNN

New Delhi: Avoidable complications during child birth are killing 78,000 women in India every year. This means on an average, one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every seven minutes.
But not only the mothers are dying one million children born in India are dying every year even before they become 28 days old. A child born in India is 14 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than one born in the US or UK. These are some of the shocking findings of UNICEF’s ‘State of the World’s Children 2009’ report released on Thursday.
According to the report, an Indian woman is 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than women in America or England. For every mother who dies, 20 others suffer pregnancy-related illness. Around 10 million women annually experience such adverse outcomes. Despite an increase in institutional deliveries, 60% of pregnant women still deliver their babies at home.
In India, more than two thirds of all maternal deaths occur in a handful of states — UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam. In UP, one in every 42 women faces risk of maternal death, compared to 1 in 500 women in Kerala.

INDIAN ROMANCE VIII

Slapping and Beating

According to the newest National Family Health Survey – III interviewing 125,000 women in 28 of the Indian States in the period of 2005-2006 find out that , 41 % of all the interviewed women justified wife- beating if it was because they showed disrespect towards their in-laws while 35 % agreed with being brutally assaulted by their husbands if they neglected the households or their children.
Almost in all states the victims don’t feel victimized, both in the case of dowry or spousal violence. They feel being beating up by the husband is all right.
Bihar was found the worst state with abuse rates as high as 59%. Bihar was followed by Rajasthan 46,3 %. Etc
Most of the women assaulted by their husbands were less than 2 years in the marriage. Slapping was the most common act of physical violence by husbands. More than 35 % in general said their husbands slapped them, while 15 % said their husbands pulled their hair or twisted their arm. And now very amazing at least for me: Buddhist woman reported the highest level of violence (41%). Followed by Muslim and Hindu woman with 34-35 %. Women of the Jain community reported the lowest rate of violence (13%)

The cartoon above is from Ann Telnaes, Ann Telnaes Womens eNews Cartoons, http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/bysubject/womensrights/byartist.php?id=70&p=3