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A Life Worth Living: Teenagers, The Family, and Health

Seoul, Korea - 25 April 1997

Women's health is a fundamental human right and is a crucial determinant of social and economic development. Nevertheless, it is a reality that many women accept ill-health as their lot in life, often ignoring painful and debilitating symptoms because women are expected to endure without complaints, and because they have no alternatives because of their inferior social, economic, and cultural status.

What factors affect women's health? Twelve critical areas of concern that the platform of action of the Beijing conference on women identifies are the factors affecting women's health. They are:

1. feminization of poverty
2. unequal access to education
3. inequalities in health care
4. violence against women
5. effects of armed conflict
6. economic structure
7. policies and access to
8. gender and equality in power and decision-making
9. institutional rights mechanism
10. human rights of women
11. media stereotyping
12. environment and the persistent discrimination and violation of the rights of the girl child.

Then, what are the major women's health issues to date? They are:

1. malnutrition
2. lack of policies supporting breast feeding
3. lack of comprehensive reproductive health service
4. high maternal mortality and morbidity
5. lack of sexuality and reproductive health service for adolescent girls and boys
6. lack of family planning service
7. unsafe abortion
8. STDs including HIV/AIDS

There are as well:

1. work related and environmental health hazards
2. communicable and non-communicable diseases and conditions that affect women differently
3. substance abuse
4. mental health problems from which women suffering more than man (i.e. depression)
5. domestic and public violence against women health

Improving women's health and eliminating inequalities require partnerships of many kinds: women and men; old and young; international agencies; governments and NGOs; researchers in many health professions; women's health advocated; program planners and users of health services. And the time has come when women's organizations all over the world are beginning to ask questions, take actions, and demand resources, results, and accountability.

There were 100 participants in this program

Reported by Yong Ju Moon

Last Modified: November 29, 2002