Speak Truth to Power - United Nations: Listening to the Silent Voice of Mothers of the World

Detroit, Michigan

Thank you, Latika, for the introduction. It is amazing, as Latika has said, that two young women, one a Hindu from India and the other from Muslim Saudi Arabia met 31 years ago and established a sisterhood of the spirit that remains since then, despite the passage of time, and geography.

As I was sitting in the small waiting room in this blessed shrine of faith and compassion, I saw a definition of friendship hanging on the wall, without any indication of its author. It says: “Friendship is the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away.”

Since I arrived yesterday afternoon, Latika and I have been talking and talking, laughing for the joys in our lives but also laughing to blow away our woes. We just poured our words, knowing that each one of us will keep what is worth keeping and blow the rest away. Thank you, Latika, for being more than a friend – a true sister over many years and many more miles of journeys together.

Leaving the personal aside, I come to why we are gathered here. I am most honoured to be here with you today, to Speak Truth to Power, and celebrate Mother’s Day. I would like to thank the Psychologists for Social Responsibility for sponsoring this meeting, the Birmingham Unitarian Church for hosting it and Freedom House for the photo exhibition that celebrates the courage of ordinary people, such as the courage of mothers all over the world.

If anyone knows how to speak truth to power, it is the mothers of the world.

To all the mothers in the audience, I would like to extend a Happy Mother’s Day! I am humbled that you have included me in your special day. May the happiness, joy, health and comfort with which we are all blessed be shared by many of the deprived mothers in many poor communities all over the world.

I am very pleased to be with you here in Detroit after 31 years of absence. This city holds a special place in my memories. Here, I met many friends from the diverse communities of Ann Arbor, Detroit and the surrounding areas and here many homes were made mine. Many people from diverse communities took me into their homes and became my mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers – they became my families away from home. To them all, I say thank you.

These special memories continue to give me strength in both my personal and professional lives. And here I am working with many cultures and communities, knowing that they are striving for what each one of us here in this temple of faith and giving want to achieve: equality, justice, peace for our countries and communities, and education, health and livelihood for our families and their members.

Today, I would like to speak about universal truths, universal truths that mothers hold dear and close to their hearts. I would like to stress three things that I believe are fundamental to mothers for advancing our well-being as individuals, as families and communities:

The first is education. Every person has the right to education. Education is the great equalizer. All mothers across the globe want their children to be educated and, better still, if that is possible, receive quality education that prepares them adequately for the future.

The second is human rights. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. It is up to each and all of us to build a culture of human rights in our families, communities and nations; a culture that stresses tolerance and understanding of different faiths, cultures and ethnic backgrounds, and zero tolerance for discrimination and hatred; a culture that promotes human rights for its people and ensures the human rights of others as well. As we see on our television screens these days, we see that human rights are not exercised universally and we also see that human rights guaranteed in this country does not necessarily reach those on the other side of the ocean – the “Others”. But it is the message of today, the message of all of us here today, to ensure that universal human rights are exercised by each and every individual, regardless of any differentiation. Universal access to human rights is a human right in and of itself.

And the third point I would like to stress is that greater efforts must be made to promote and protect the rights of women. All women and all mothers need their human rights to be recognized and respected. This is true in all countries. But this is one of the great challenges of our world in the 21st century.

All of these issues are linked together and they are mutually reinforcing. After all, quality education promotes human rights, including the rights of women.

I would like to start with a personal story about education. Education was the key that opened the doors in my life. Education got me to where I am today.

When I was a little girl, my parents had a dream for me – a dream about having equal opportunities with my brothers, that I should receive an education. My father, a devout Muslim, interpreted the command in the first sura of the Qur’an as instructions to all Muslims, men and women. The first word in the Qur’an is an order to "read". My country’s Government carried forward his dream and initiative and provided me with scholarships to Mills College, Oakland, California, and Wayne State University.

Having had my pre-university education in a fine boarding school in Cairo, Egypt, I had lived a protected life. Like the other boarding students, I was always chaperoned wherever I went outside the school walls. On the first day after my brothers brought me to Mills College, I took the bus and went to downtown Oakland and walked for hours, until my feet hurt. But I did not feel the pain; rather it was a wonderful feeling of freedom and independence. I call it the Walk of Freedom. For the very first time in my life, I was walking alone, without a chaperone. Though I was ecstatic, I also knew that this freedom had a price; it was responsibility towards my family, my countrywomen and myself. I was the only woman with a government scholarship in the United States and my performance, academically and socially, would determine the future of girls' education outside Saudi Arabia. I was 17 years old then and the responsibility seemed great and heavy, but Mills College and the American family that adopted me as their fourth daughter, the McCarthys, provided me with a supportive environment, which lightened the load. It gave me space to grow and to find myself in a quality social and academic setting, to interact with students of many cultures and to learn about women of colour in the United States through first-hand experiences. It gave me the confidence to have dialogue on Islam and Christianity with both the Chaplain of the College, Dr. George Hedley, and with Father John Cummins, now the Bishop of Oakland, who used to visit some students at Mills Hall. I also thoroughly enjoyed going to Midnight Mass with Papa, Mr. Thomas McCarthy.

Mills was pivotal in my life and that of my family and the young women in Saudi Arabia. Just after graduation in June 1966, I noticed that my father was very intensely preoccupied, and not confiding in me. On the day we arrived in Jeddah through Rome, he shared his concerns. They centred on how we would descend from and leave the airplane. I did not understand what he had been talking about. So, he quickly explained. When the flight arrived in Jeddah, there were very many men, including my three older brothers, waiting at the foot of the gangway, while my father and I were the last passengers to leave the plane. Then, in a very dramatic way, we walked down the stairs with my face uncovered for the very first time – an act against the traditions of that time. My father held my hand firmly in his left hand and the Mills Bachelor's degree in his right and waved it very high in the air. I never covered my face again because my father sent a loud and clear message to society – education was my honour as well as his. Education was liberating and empowering and it imparted wisdom.

Then I came here to Wayne State University, as you have been informed, and completed my post-graduate studies. I used to teach English to foreign students and then focused on teaching remedial English to students from the various disadvantaged parts of Detroit. All these introduced me to a world of diversity of faiths, values and customs, but affirmed my belief in the unity of human hopes for a better life for all. I was here when the so-called Detroit riots occurred and I witnessed first-hand what it meant to seek the means to get attention and to claim one’s rights. It was here I went to the courts as interpreter for some Yemeni workers claiming their rights. I was here when various community-based institutions were established to serve the Arab community. I also saw people serving other communities of immigrants trying to build new ways of life in a new land.

Ever since I graduated, I have spent my professional life working at the United Nations for social and economic development, mainly in the Arab region. In its essence, social and economic development is built on the principle of human dignity, which is the underlying principle of all human rights.

This is a very powerful truth. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. This is the first article of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration represents the first time that universal human rights were spelled out for all people in a civil and individual context. But many of our faiths and holy books have words of wisdom and assertions of human rights in various forms. They all assert the equality and freedom of people; we are all born into freedom and other people can only make us slaves if we accept and succumb. All faiths declare the unity of human beings and the freedom of all.

Today, the struggle for human rights continues. Many countries have moved on to establish various forms of human rights institutions and mechanisms. Some are independent and voluntary and constitute pressure groups and recourse for the marginalized and victims, such as the House of Freedom here; others are governmental and constitute check and balance mechanisms.

Throughout history, various forms of women’s movements and actions to assert their human rights have taken place. Today, the global struggle for women’s rights is one of the largest social movements of our time and one of the great struggles for freedom.

It involves women from all walks of life—mothers, teachers, farmers, lawyers, nurses, doctors, students and politicians. There are also many men working for the rights of women. And I salute you, men.

Over the past decade, significant research has demonstrated what many have known for a long time: women are critical to economic development, active civil society and good governance.

Focusing on women is often the best way to improve health and education; stem the spread of HIV/AIDS; build robust and self-sustaining community organizations; and encourage grass-roots democracy. But it has to be the human rights of all people, all over the globe, brought about by themselves and for themselves. Human rights are not forced upon a society; human rights emerge from the suffering of people and they have to be lived and experienced, understood and enjoyed, respected and protected. This is the only way the human rights of all people can be established, guaranteed and protected.

Much like human rights a generation ago, women's rights were long considered too controversial for international affairs. For decades, international development agencies skirted gender issues in highly patriarchal societies. Now, however, they increasingly see women's empowerment as critical to greater progress.

Since we are celebrating International Mother’s Day, I want to talk about an issue that is very close to my heart. And that is safe motherhood.

Today, in poor countries, millions of women put their lives at risk to give birth. I have seen the challenges they face first-hand; it is an unforgettable experience.

Here in the United States, safe motherhood is not a red-flag issue. The image of a woman dying in childbirth seems an anachronism, a throwback to earlier times. We take safe motherhood for granted.

Yet, while other health indicators in the developing world have recently improved, maternal mortality remains distressingly high. As members of the world community, it is not enough to be appalled; we should work together to eradicate this ugly denial of the basic human rights of an individual – the right to live while giving life.

The tragic fact is that over half a million women died last year from preventable complications related to pregnancy and childbirth –- the leading cause of death and disability for women aged 15 to 49 in most poor countries. Ninety-five per cent of these deaths occurred in Africa and Asia. Another issue facing many women is HIV/AIDS. More and more, we are seeing the face of HIV as the face of young women. In general, there are more women infected with HIV than men, in some countries in Africa, it is 1 man to 5 or 6 young women.

If you add political conflicts and natural disasters to the equation, the picture becomes still more sobering. Most of us do not give it much thought, but women continue to give birth during hurricanes, earthquakes—and war. They are often the least obvious victims, and this can have deadly consequences.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, working with its on-site partners, is among the first to step in with a rapid response for women as soon as emergencies arise. A few basic supplies can make a big difference in enabling a pregnant woman to deliver safely: a small tablet of soap, a plastic sheet, a razor blade and a string, with illustrated instructions comprise a simple, yet often vital, home birthing kit. Then, we follow up with medicines, surgical equipment and trained personnel, creating the start of real reproductive health services in crisis situations.

In the first 20 seconds of the devastating December earthquake in Iran, 85 per cent of the health infrastructure and over half of the health care personnel were decimated, leaving pregnant women extremely vulnerable and exposed to many risks. UNFPA’s humanitarian assistance programme provided a clean, well-equipped tent clinic near the ruins of homes so that women could deliver babies safely.

In poverty-stricken Haiti, a woman has a 1 in 29 lifetime risk of dying of complications of pregnancy or childbirth, a figure that gives Haiti one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. This stands in stark contrast to the United States, where a woman’s lifetime risk of dying during childbirth is 1 in 2,500.

Recent political turmoil in Haiti has only heightened the need for already sparse health supplies, with stress and trauma negatively affecting pregnancies. UNFPA has recently delivered 60 clinic-level kits – each containing three months of medical supplies.

In Afghanistan, when hundreds of thousands people fled their homes a few years ago to escape armed conflict, babies were born on the roadside and along rugged mountain passes. The first priority was to help the pregnant women among the displaced by pre-positioning emergency supplies in bordering countries for use by refugees and for distribution inside Afghanistan, when conditions permitted.

In Occupied Palestinian Territory, where women sometimes gave birth at Israeli military checkpoints and died or saw their babies die, we turned our programme around to support community-based maternal services, which enabled women to give birth in their communities, without a need to travel out for maternal facilities.

In Iraq, where abortion has increased during the ongoing war – resulting from a failing health system and weakened family planning services – and where women are suffering as a consequence, we support health centres to provide family planning methods so that women can determine the timing of their pregnancies and the spacing between them. We rehabilitated and equipped many maternal and family planning centres to grant women access to reproductive health services.

We at UNFPA understand what needs to be done. Our response must be swift, to ensure that pregnant women can give birth safely in a clean environment and receive emergency obstetric care if needed. We also know that almost all maternal deaths can be prevented with quality prenatal care. Yet, today, nearly half the women in developing countries deliver their babies without a trained midwife, doctor or nurse at their sides.

Greater efforts are necessary to ensure that the health and education of girls and women is made a priority.

This need is highlighted by the existence of millions of child brides, who are married before they are fully mature. More than one million infants — and an estimated 70,000 adolescent mothers — die each year in developing countries because young girls are marrying and having children before they are physically ready for motherhood.

Some of the highest-risk countries for girls married-off as child brides are Niger, Liberia and Mali, which top of the list. Other countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Haiti, Nepal, Nicaragua and Yemen. In these countries, more than 1 in 6 girls aged 15 to 19 give birth each year, and nearly 1 in 7 of their babies die before their first year.

Each year, 1 in every 10 births worldwide is to a mother who is still a child herself. Girls in their teens in poor countries are twice as likely to die from pregnancy and childbirth, compared to mature women.

Children born to children are more likely to be delivered prematurely, at low birth weight and are more likely to die in the first month of life.

The United States is not immune. Birth rates for adolescent girls in the United States are higher than in any other industrialized country. In fact, in some remote rural communities, adolescent birth rates are higher than in many developing countries.

The point is that girls are marrying and giving birth before they are emotionally and physically ready. Often, they do not have a choice. This is because girls in many societies are valued less than boys. And this is something that women in all countries are working to change.

I would like to share with you how lucky we are. This becomes even more evident when we hear of the lives of others. We at UNFPA know that every minute in the world:

• 380 women become pregnant, half of them did not plan or wish the pregnancy;
• 110 women experience a pregnancy-related complication;
• 100 women have an abortion;
• 40 women have an unsafe abortion;
• 10 people are infected with HIV, with most being women;
• 1 woman dies from a pregnancy-related cause.

And here is where I am going to come around to where I started—to education. To change these situations, access to education is key. Research shows that girls who receive an education are less likely to have babies at a young age.

Even mothers with only a basic education have healthier pregnancies, safer deliveries and healthier babies because they are more likely to seek health-care services for themselves and their children — including girls — to go to school and to use family planning to space their births.

If you would like to be part of this global community just as you are part of your local community, there is something you can do. Many of you originally come from far-away places, where you still maintain relations and contacts, but you have been blessed to find new opportunities and establish new ways of life. But you can still be part of the global community that is so diversified, yet so united in its quest for equality and for people’s rights.

United States Committee Safe Motherhood Initiative

This Mother’s Day, the United States Committee for the United Nations Population Fund, a not-for-profit organization, is launching a Safe Motherhood Initiative to raise awareness and support for safe motherhood programmes all over the world. The US Committee was formed to generate American awareness of and support for UNFPA and its work around the world for the health and rights of women and girls.

The $34 million Friends Movement

There is another initiative that is just as great and has been going on for a couple of years. For decades, the United States has been one of the supportive donors to UNFPA. And since 2001, the United States Congress has been generous to UNFPA, raising its annual contribution from $25 million to $34 million annually to support the Fund’s work all over the world.

However, the United States Administration chose not to release the funding, claiming that our work in China promoted abortion and coercive population policies. Certainly, we do not promote abortion or participate in any programmes that are coercive. Our guiding principles are voluntary action, free choice and informed consent. This was clearly demonstrated by the Human Rights Report of the United States Department of State, which annually indicated that our work in 32 counties in China has pushed to turn around the policies in those counties.

We have demonstrated that, when women are given the opportunity to access all modern methods of family planning and when they receive appropriate and quality counselling about their family planning options, they make the right decisions for themselves and their families. We have shown that abortion, which was used as a method of family planning, has been greatly reduced as women planned their families with contraceptive methods they chose. The Administration’s own handpicked team, which visited UNFPA-supported projects in 2002, reported that UNFPA is a force for good in China; we are pushing the country to change step by step. China has said it is now in the process of replicating the model we established in 32 countries to 880 counties in different parts of the country – and that means millions and millions of women and men will have more chances to exercise choice in determining the number and spacing of their children – and that is a human right.

I would like to stress that this is not a partisan issue. UNFPA has enjoyed tremendous support from both sides of the aisle. What is important is that 70 per cent of the American public supports voluntary international family planning and Americans support adequate health care for women during pregnancy and childbirth. Still, the Administration has maintained its position.

And, there have been responses. For example, two wonderful American mothers, Jane Roberts, a retired school teacher from California, and Lois Abraham, a lawyer from New Mexico, have understood the points above well. A year and a half ago, they created a grass-roots movement to try to recoup the $34 million that was appropriated by Congress, but withheld by the Administration. It is called the 34 million friends movement.

It is estimated that $34 million could prevent an estimated 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths.

How sad it is that, at the beginning of this 21st century, mothers in many parts of the world still bid farewell to their older children before giving birth. “I am going to the sea to fetch a new baby,” they tell them, “but the journey is long and dangerous and I may not return.”

If we join hands, we will make a difference. Working together, we can ensure that one day the image of a woman not returning will be a thing of the past for families across the globe.

On this Mother’s Day, as we celebrate each other and as we celebrate people of courage all over the world, let us commit ourselves again to saving mothers’ lives all over the world. Let the voices of mothers rise with joy for health and a dignified life, may their voices never be silent again.

Thank you.