Human Rights

Human Rights Council: 8th session: Rights of Women: Maternal, mortality and women’s human rights panel discussion: Statement by New Zealand and Norway

5 June 2008

I have the honour to make this statement on behalf of Norway and New Zealand.

We greatly appreciate the presence here today of representatives from the UNFPA, WHO and the Partnership Approach, and civil society. It is vital to foster coordination between international actors in order to ensure a consistent and coordinated approach to prevention measures at the national level.

The panellists have conveyed clear message today that the number of deaths due to pregnancy and child birth is staggering; that many of the deaths are preventable; and that many such deaths represent a violation of women’s rights to health, education, right to life, equality and non-discrimination.

We understand that, if human rights considerations are integrated into policies and programmes to address maternal mortality, such initiatives are likely to be more effective, equitable, non-discriminatory and participatory. The net result being women’s empowerment, which we see as a key element in reducing rates of maternal mortality.

Norway and New Zealand would be interested in the panellists’ views as to:

• which human rights obligations could be incorporated into existing prevention measures and how such incorporation would improve the effectiveness of prevention measures; and

• how the unacceptably high rate of deaths due to pregnancy and child birth undermines women’s and the wider community’s realisation of rights such as the right to education, the right to development, the right to food or the right to work.

• what role national human rights mechanisms can play in assisting existing efforts to reduce maternal mortality rates.

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