The UNFPA finds unintended pregnancies a ‘human rights crisis’ and warns that this has profound consequences for societies, women and girls and global health.
Nearly half of all pregnancies, totalling 121 million each year throughout the world, are unintended, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency said in its flagship report State of World Population 2022.
“Even in Bangladesh, unintended pregnancy is an issue. It has a long-term impact on the way the country enters into the middle-income status,” chief of the UNFPA Bangladesh office Eiko Narita told Bangladesh Post while explaining the report titled “Seeing the Unseen”.
“In Bangladesh, 59 out of 1000 pregnancies still considered being unintended and that is quite high,” she said, adding that child marriage has a significant contribution in unintended pregnancies in Bangladesh as 5 out of 10 child brides become pregnant before the age of 18.
So, the issue has to be seen from different perspectives, she said. “Unintended pregnancy is a matter of women’s empowerment and gender equality. When a woman has the possibility to decide whether, when and with whom she wants to get pregnant, she is exercising fundamental control over her future”.
Unintended pregnancy is different from unwanted pregnancy. It covers both sides – not planned, but yet welcomed. Many unintended pregnancies are met with joy and many of them are deeply loved.
“Yet while celebrating fortunate outcomes, we must also acknowledge the denial of voice that gave rise to the pregnancies to begin with,” Eiko Narita said.
Bangladesh has come to a long way in many family planning indicators since 1994 when the ICPD, International Conference on Population and Development, called for specific actions for all people to have access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including voluntary family planning, safe pregnancy and childbirth services, and the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. Almost a quarter of females were unable to access family planning services during that time. It has gone down to 12 percent today.
“In the last three decades, a tremendous degree of success was achieved in various social indicators, including sexual reproductive health, maternal mortality rate, child mortality and child marriage. However, we have started witnessing stagnation over these successes in the last five years. In the last five years, the child marriage rate has decreased only by 1 percent and we are really at a point where we might actually be reversing the gains,” she said, adding that during the Covid-19 pandemic, they observed upward trajectory of child marriage in Bangladesh.
Besides, in Bangladesh, she said, about 15.5 percent of all adolescents do not have their family planning needs met and so those pregnancies tend to be unintended pregnancies.
Additionally, gender-based violence, access to sexual reproductive health measures, and lack of sex education play a great role in women empowerment.
“And, as a cumulative effect of all these factors, women can be subjected to unintended pregnancies. And when a pregnancy is unwanted or unplanned it can result in worsened health, lost education, lost income and increase in family hardship for women,” said the UNFPA Bangladesh chief.
According to the State of the World Population report, over 60 percent of unintended pregnancies end in abortion and an estimated 45 percent of all abortions are unsafe, causing 5 – 13 per cent of all maternal deaths, thereby having a major impact on the world’s ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.
“We consider this as flagship report because it picks up some of our core issues of the time related to the sexual and reproductive health,” Eiko Narita said, adding that considering the situation, we call it (unintended pregnancies) crisis.
“It’s a matter of urgency that needs to come up now. Things needed to be done to reverse the unintended pregnancies. Something we need to act on.”
For Bangladesh, she said, there is no alternative to change the scenario of child marriage.
“With such development of the country, the issue of child marriage or gender-based violence hasn’t decreased. It’s because the issues have become far more complex with the dynamic changes in society. If we really want to change this situation, we have to go into the root of this problem and adopt new solutions.”
The UNFPA also suggested amending the child marriage prevention law to make it more impactful by plugging the loopholes.
The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals recognise women’s bodily autonomy and gender equality and the importance of women’s ability to make informed decisions about sexual relations, contraception, and reproductive healthcare.
“This report is a wakeup call. The staggering number of unintended pregnancies represents a global failure to uphold women and girls’ basic human rights,” UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem said while launching the report.
“When an estimated half of all pregnancies are not by choice, it gives us an alarming picture of the state of neglect of women’s reproductive freedom. It is largely invisible, in part because it is so very common. It’s happening everywhere,” she said.
“For the women affected, the most life-altering reproductive choice—whether or not to become pregnant—is no choice at all. By putting the power to make this most fundamental decision squarely in the hands of women and girls, societies can ensure that motherhood is an aspiration and not inevitability.”
