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Maternal mortality and transport access: a key theme for women’s conference 2009
24 April 2008
Transport access and its role in preventing deaths in childbirth is to be among the key themes at next year’s ITF women’s conference.
Twenty-six women transport workers representing unions in 23 countries – from Argentina, Bermuda and Canada to Bulgaria, Guyana and Mongolia – attended the meeting at ITF headquarters on 21 and 22 April. There they agreed to focus on maternal mortality and transport access as part of a new focus on women and community, making common cause with women as transport users. The move addresses a range of issues in detail including: access to services, HIV/AIDS and women transport workers, gender and climate change and women’s rights.
Jeff Turner, Social Development Theme Champion of the Global Transport Knowledge Partnership, who has been involved in studies on maternal mortality and transport, states: “You can spend all the effort you want on improving maternal healthcare, but it is ineffective if you can't get there. Transport union members play a key role in providing local public transport that is used in emergency situations due to the lack of emergency ambulance provision. They can also be the problem if they are not co-operative to the needs of communities that use public transport in such emergencies where they have no other alternative.
“The problem is particularly significant in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest mortality rates and some of the lowest road and population density, affecting the availability of commercial public transport especially in rural areas. However, linkages between transport and health during pregnancy have also been shown to be key amongst low income women in studies across the world, including London, UK, and Detroit, US.
"Because transport plays a significant but neglected role in maternal mortality, the lead shown by an ITF women's conference on this issue is significant."
The Global Transport Knowledge Partnership is developing a 'toolkit' on transport and maternal mortality, building on one developed by Jeff Turner and Professor Margaret Grieco: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/mg294/maternalmortality.html.
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