One mother dies every minute and mothers die everyday, leading to 500,000 global maternal deaths every year. In Indonesia, 20,000 women die during childbirth.
Nobody but officials of statistic bureaus or the Health Ministry care about the alarming number of women who die in childbirth. Only a few mainstream media, print and electronic, pay attention to cover the death of these poor women, who might be their mothers, wives, neighbors and sisters.
Kamal Siddiqi, editor of the Pakistan-based The News, admitted that the media is currently filled with news of politics, economy, arm conflicts, sports and entertainment.
“News of politics, terrorism, arm conflicts, corruptions dominate most of the media’s front pages and headlines,” Siddiqi said adding it was difficult to convince the editors to put health issues, especially those related to children and women, in the paper.
“Newspapers have limited space so we have to fight to get a little space for health coverage, considered ‘soft issues’.”
Television, radio and other forms of media rarely focus on health, maternal and child health in particular, which they consider insignificant news, as it was both domestic and a daily occurrence.
Naresh Newar, editor of Panos South Asia, shared similar opinion saying journalists who covered this issue must work hard to make it “acceptable by editors and readable by readers”.
“In the past few years, however, more and more media in Asian countries start to consider maternal and child health as gigantic problems to a nation.”
In many countries including Indonesia, dying during childbirth was considered noble.
“Many people strongly believe that the dead women would go directly to heaven,” said a female activist.
Katja Iversen, a media specialist at UNFPA’s New York headquarters, commented that the media actually plays a very important role in delivering news and information about the real facts of women’s lives to the people across the globe.
“In any country, media is an important agent of change. Media can have major influence on policy makers, community, legislators and other parties that maternal health is a serious issue that bears social, political and economic impacts.
Through consistent news coverage, the media act as a social and government watchdog.”
In the US, people usually ignored the high number of women who died during pregnancy and childbirth.
“But when influential newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post placed the news of poor women died in childbirth, the country was shaken. The news opened the eyes of many people from a layman to health workers and policy makers that the problem was so serious,” Iversen said.
“We cannot ignore the health condition of women because we all have a mother, wife, sister, aunt and friends who have given birth and who experienced various childbirth complications.”
Sri Soemaryati, former chief of the National Family Planning Program, recalled the New Order government’s communication plan.
Under former president Soeharto, Indonesia was considered one of the proponents of the Family Planning Program in the world as an effort to reduce population growth.
“The new order government compulsory used state-owned TVRI television station and RRI radio station to disseminate news and information on family planning and other health programs including Safe Motherhood programs nationwide,” said Soemaryati, now a legislator representing the Central Java area.
Centralized and authoritarian government under Soeharto’s New Order period between the late l960s and the 1990s had powerful arms and communications tool to implement any government-funded programs.
“In this reform era, the roles of TVRI and RRI are decreasing, while private media have the rights to select worthy news. It really depends on editors and journalists whether to put women, children and health issues on their media.”
During the reform era, the implementation of such programs received little attention from the media and the community alike.
Dr. Hetifah Sumarto, a legislator from Golkar Party representing East Kalimantan province, commented it was high time for parliament members to establish strong partnership with the media to promote good governance and to ensure the government policies favor the public.
Parliamentarians represent the people whose rights are to be protected.
“Both media and legislators can influence policies and budget allocations for health sectors including maternal and child health care.”
Monitoring the implementation of existing laws and decrees regarding maternal health is one of important steps for the newly elected legislators to improve women’s health conditions, she said.
Indonesia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in l984, a strong legal umbrella for pro-women laws and decrees.
“We must focus on several strategic issues regarding laws that relate to women’s welfare including law on marriage, labor law, health laws and numerous decrees which are not enforced effectively,” Soemaryati said.
Great examples come from Bangladesh. The country has succeeded in reducing maternal and child mortality rates by establishing partnerships among the government, politicians, media and the community.
Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Bangladeshi State Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, said the government involved grass-root journalists and community to go beyond reporting cases of maternal death in that country.
“We are still working hard to cut off the number of women dying in childbirth or pregnancy. However, we have find ways to garner support from all stakeholders in the community – the media, NGOs, committed politicians and the people.”
— JP/Rita A. Widiadana
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