Unintended pregnancies hindering progress

When a pregnancy is unwanted or unplanned, it can result in worsened health, lost education, lost income and increase in family hardship for women.

— Eiko Narita

Nearly 121 million pregnancies globally are unintended, among which 60 percent end up in abortion. In Bangladesh, around 59 out of each 1,000 pregnancies are unintended, reveals a report.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has launched the State of World Population (SWOP) Report 2022, which focuses on the issue of "Unintended Pregnancy".

On the occasion of the report launching, UNFPA country representative Eiko Narita sat for an exclusive interview with The Daily Star recently.

"When a pregnancy is unwanted or unplanned, it can result in worsened health, lost education, lost income and increase in family hardship for women," Eiko Narita said while talking to The Daily Star at the UNFPA country office in Dhaka.

Over the past three decades, Bangladesh has achieved significant progress with all Millennium Development Goals achieved. In 1993-94, almost a quarter of females were unable to access family planning services and that has gone down to 12 percent today and that's a significant achievement, according to Narita.

"However, we have started witnessing a stagnation over these successes in the last five years," she said.

She noted some issues, including the decrease in the child marriage rate by only 1 percent in the last five years in the country.

About 15.5 percent of all adolescents in Bangladesh don't have their family planning needs met, resulting in unintended pregnancies. Additionally, gender-based violence, access to sexual reproductive health measures and lack of sex education play a negative role in women's empowerment.

"We are really at a point where we might actually be reversing the gains," she said, adding that all of the issues contribute to subjecting women to unintended pregnancies.

She also stressed taking measures against the increased rate of child marriage in the country during and after the pandemic.

"Child marriage has a significant contribution to unintended pregnancies as five out of 10 child brides become pregnant before the age of 18," said Narita.

She also stated that climate change has been negatively affecting pregnancies, which the government should look into.

To address these issues associated with adolescents in the country, the UNFPA has been collaborating with the government.

"We have arranged Alapon helpline for the adolescent youths where they can call and get correct information on sexual and reproductive health... about family planning and child marriage."

"We are also going to be working with secondary schools to ensure life skill educations, talking about child marriage. We are working with the department of secondary education to expand the curriculum to more than 5,000 high schools," she added.

Besides, the UNFPA has trained as many as 50,000 midwives.

"Of course, we are going to be working with the government and on the policy level on these issues as well," said Narita.