Yemen Celebrates World Population Day 2007

Aden, July 11

 Under the theme of Men as Partners in Maternal Health, the National Population Council in cooperation with UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and in coordination with the Ministry of Information, the Women’s National Committee, and the Aden local Authority, organized a celebration and workshop.

In the celebration, Dr.Arwa Al-Rabei delivered a speech on behalf of the Ministry of Public Health and Population, in which she expressed that the population growth rate in Yemen of 3.1percent is one of the highest rates in the world and presents a great challenge to Yemen and major threat to its future. She called for special attention to this issue from all Yemeni society, in addition to policy makers and public opinion leaders.

 Al-Rabei also indicated that this year’s World Population Day theme, “Men as Partners in Maternal Health”, recognizes men’s vital rule in this issue. Men are an important element of change in supporting the goals of reproductive health and safe motherhood that we all looking to achieve for Yemeni women, and especially in reducing the high maternal mortality ratio, now 365/100,000, Al-Rabei said. She also called men, as fathers, brothers, husbands, community and religious leaders, and government officials - to become partners in maternal health, agents for change, supporting human rights and safe motherhood in every way possible.

“The success of our work on population in Yemen is related to women’s empowerment, the nation-wide provision of reproductive health services and family planning, and assurance of a proper logistics system”, Dr. Al-Rabei concluded.

 Hans Obdeijn, UNFPA representative, gave a speech in which he remarked that the State of the World Population 2007 warned that “Yemen’s current population of 22.3 million will - if nothing happens – be 60 million in only four decades” and posing the following questions: “How will they live? Who will feed them? Who will give them jobs? Who will ensure their happiness?”

“The experts, Yemenis and from abroad, tell us that the key to preventing this situation from spinning dramatically out of control lies with the women of Yemen. They tell us that this key includes empowering the women of Yemen to take informed decisions about their reproductive life, giving them free access to quality reproductive health services, including modern methods of family planning, midwives and backup obstetric care. It directly affects the quality of life for women and their families. We call this safe motherhood or maternal health”, Obdeijn said.

Regarding this year’s theme, Obdeijn noticed that men in Yemen play a crucial role in every aspect of life. With this role comes not only privileges, but also an enormous responsibility for the present situation, and perhaps more importantly, for the shaping of the future of Yemen, Obdeijn added. He also pointed out that “Empowering women is most likely to be achieved when men recognise that the lives of men and women are interdependent and that safe motherhood and maternal health benefits everyone”.

Obdeijn called on Yemeni men to become partners in maternal health, agents for change, and supporters of human rights and safe motherhood in every way possible. “Together we can make this the last year that 365 women die in Yemen during pregnancy and childbirth for every 100,000 babies born. Let us go forward with the message”, Obdeijn said “No Yemeni woman should die giving life”, he added.

“Let us do all we can to promote the right of every Yemeni woman to enjoy a life of health, dignity and equal opportunity, thus contributing to creating a world of greater health and opportunity for all. Men are women’s partners in life, development and success. Men’s decisions can mean the difference between life and death” Obdeijn concluded.

Links related to the wide media coverage received on the occasion of the World Population Day r include the following:

http://sabanews.net/view.php?scope=f69b5&dr=&ir=&id=134417

http://www.14october.com/Default.aspx?Target=Good_More

http://www.14october.com/IssuesFiles/3efae89f-5dcf-4565-9255-e66d8591cd92/09.pdf

http://www.26sep.net/narticle.php?lng=arabic&sid=30022

http://www.almotamar.net/news/46488.htm

http://www.althawranews.net/CMS/pdffile/2007/07/11//01.PDF

http://www.althawranews.net/CMS/pdffile/2007/07/11//27.PDF

http://www.althawranews.net/CMS/pdffile/2007/07/18//31.PDF

http://www.hadhramaut.info/detail.asp?id=11842

http://www.mayonews.net/ad/showdetails.php?id=6991

http://www.newsyemen.net/view_news.asp?sub_no=1_2007_07_15_14121

http://www.rawasy.net/narticle.php?sid=30022

http://www.sabanews.net/view.php?scope=f69b5&dr=&ir=&id=134491

http://www.sabanews.net/view.php?scope=f6a19&dr=&ir=&id=134195

http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1067&p=local&a=1

  Back to top