Clinic Aid Cuts Are Affecting Women in Afghanistan and Yemen

Imagine being in labor for hours, knowing the nearest clinic is 40 kilometers away. On rugged mountain roads, that means a long three hour drive, but you have no car. By the time you finally reach a doctor, it is too late to save your baby. This isn't a scene from a movie. It is a tragic, daily reality for women in Afghanistan and Yemen right now. A devastating reality of funding cuts and forgotten issues has caused a maternal health crisis. Aid cuts are at risk of erasing decades of progress, leaving millions of women without maternal care.

Afghanistan already suffers from one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with 521 deaths per 100,000 live births. The UN warns this number could triple if funding cuts are not reversed. In Yemen, three women die every single day from childbirth or pregnancy complications. Two out of those three women lacked access to a basic midwife and simple medicines.

The UNFPA has faced huge budget cuts. While Afghanistan is only 70% funded, Yemen’s funding situation is catastrophic having only secured just 13% of the $70 million needed to keep women safe. Maternal healthcare is a medical necessity, female doctors and midwives have been allowed to keep working. With a network of Family Health Houses, UNFPA employed roughly 3,500 female health workers to treat women in remote areas, but when foreign assistance programs were cut, UNFPA lost $130 million. In return about 1,000 female healthcare providers were laid off. The clinics they worked at simply closed their doors. In a country where most men struggled to find a job, a mother or sister waking up, putting on her uniform and going to perform her duties was hope for many young girls. Now, that hope is fading.

Across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen which is enduring the world's fifth largest displacement crisis. Economic collapse, and recent conflicts have shuttered two thirds of the country's health facilities.

Over the last decade, thousands of midwives have been trained in Yemen, and vital health networks have been built. These aren't just temporary emergency stations, they are the foundations of the healthcare system. To save lives, we must invest in sustainable solutions like telemedicine to connect remote village midwives with doctors and create cash assistance programs so poor women can actually afford transportation to a clinic. 

When aid budgets are slashed, the consequences aren’t just numbers on a balance sheet. They are felt by the 1,000's of women who lose their jobs and the young girls watching them return home defeated. They are felt by the mothers who are forced to give birth in a displacement camp without a doctor insight. The women of Afghanistan and Yemen are fighting every single day to keep their communities alive.

سبحانك اللهم وبحمدك أشهد ان لا اله الا انت استغفرك وأتوب اليك