World Population Day: Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities

 Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities.

Communities and societies are stronger and healthier when women and girls are empowered to choose if and when to build the families they want.

World Population Day is observed every year on July 11th to raise awareness about global population issues and highlight the importance of addressing them sustainably. This year’s World Population Day carries the theme “Unleashing the Power of Gender Equality: Uplifting the Voices of Women and Girls to Unlock Our World’s Infinite Possibilities,” as designated by the United Nations. This theme highlights the transformative potential of gender equality in empowering women and girls and creating a more inclusive and prosperous world.

For our program today we invited Luiza, a woman who lives below the poverty line, mother of 5 children but who had 8 births.

Vídeo on demand

As the world’s population continues to grow, it’s important to understand the implications of this growth and work towards achieving a balance between population and resources. 

INTERVIEW

Hello, good evening!

My name is Luiza Dembo João.

Miss How Are you?

I'm fine, thank you very much.

Do you consider yourself a woman living below the poverty line?

Yes, I do not have good financial conditions.

Could you tell us a little about the difficulties you face as a woman?

I face various kinds of difficulties in this poor country that we live in. People are always suffering from poverty, food parcel are always going up (very expensive) and the poor cannot buy.

How is your financial life going?

My financial life is not so good. For example, today if I have a job it is thanks to my aunt who took me in and invited me to work with her in a small snack bar that she opened, we cook lunches and serve the local community in this area.

Do you have higher education?

No, I don't have higher education.

Why didn't you reach this level?

Because I have no financial possibilities, I stopped studying in the 8th grade.

What are the main family difficulties you face due to lack of financial resources?

Well, I face many serious financial difficulties in my family.

Tell us a little about your maternal life. Have you ever encountered difficulties during pregnancy? Have you ever had an abortion or other complications due to lack of funds to look for the best doctors and the best hospitals?

Yes, I have been through these events. My husband doesn't have a good job either, so we're going through a lot of difficulties.

My first daughter, thank God, was born healthy, but my second baby had a problem with hepatitis B, and because of the lack of financial resources on my part, I couldn't go to the prenatal consultation and do all the analyzes to have a healthy pregnancy. My son was born with hepatitis B transmitted by me. I went through many difficulties, there was no way to fight this disease and cure my baby. Unfortunately, my baby passed away.

How many children do you have now?

I now have 5 children.

Were you able to solve the problem of the disease you had?

Yes.

When I became pregnant with my third baby, I was diagnosed with hepatitis B, my family contributed some money that allowed me to treat this disease. I started doing all the consultations and treatment before the baby was born.Thank God I had a healthier pregnancy, when my baby was born he took the vaccine, my relatives helped me a lot with the contribution of money to pay in the hospital. My baby and I have taken all the recommended vaccines, today we are healthy, my baby is 3 years old and is in good health.

How many children have you lost?

I lost 3 children.

Have you lost 3 children due to Hepatitis B?

Yes.

Did you only find out now that you had this disease?

Yes, I just found out now.

Before, you hadn't made this discovery because you weren't making the prenatal check-ups regularly?

Yes, I didn't use to do consultations. Whenever I got pregnant, I didn't usually visit the hospitals because I didn't have money to do the ultrasound, prenatal consultations to find out how the baby was doing, that's why my babies were born sick and died.

Tell us about the job you have now. Is this job a thriving one that allows you to do great things in life or not at all?

This work is more or less, it's not so prosperous, because our kitchen is new, we don't have many customers yet. It would be great if I had another job with a higher salary.

Do your children study?

Yes they study, but...

Haven't you been facing difficulties in paying your children's school fees?

Yes, we have many difficulties. For example, my first daughter is 16 years old, we enrolled her in a school where she is studying medicine. But since she started studying, we have only been able to pay for 2 months, the others until the end of the school year we have not been able to pay, for this reason she runs the risk of not continuing with her studies because her name will not be on the list of finalists.

With other minor daughters it is also the same thing, we find it difficult to pay school fees regularly. The money my husband and I earn is enough for daily consumption, buying food and water. But it is not enough to pay the tuition fees.

So has your financial hardship negatively affected children's lives as well?

Yes, it affects my children very negatively indeed.

And for now, you can't find solutions to solve this problem, other than finding a job with a very high salary?

I can find no solution to my Poverty other than a very high-paying job.

But is finding a job with a very high salary difficult at this time?

Yes, it's true.

Moreover, my husband also does not prosper, he does not have a good salary. We do not have a house, we have been living for 11 years in a small log cabin, we have large land but we are not able to build due to lack of financial resources.

Alright, thank you very much.

2023 Theme: Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities

What women and girls want matters.

They make up 49.7% of the global population, yet women and girls are often ignored in discussions on demographics, with their rights violated in population policies.

This pervasive injustice keeps women and girls out of school, the workforce and leadership positions; limits their agency and ability to make decisions about their health and sexual and reproductive lives; and heightens their vulnerability to violence, harmful practices and preventable maternal death, with a woman dying every two minutes due to pregnancy or childbirth.

We must advance gender equality to create a more just, resilient and sustainable world. The creativity, ingenuity, resources and power of women and girls are fundamental to addressing demographic and other challenges that threaten our future, including climate change and conflict.

When women and girls are empowered by societies to exert autonomy over their lives and bodies, they and their families thrive, as the UNFPA 2023 State of World Population report illustrates.

UNFPA brings its data, experience and stories to support women and girls around the world, and World Population Day gives us an opportunity to highlight the need to advance gender equality to help realize the dreams of all 8 billion of us on our planet.

 

World Population Trends

It took hundreds of thousands of years for the world population to grow to 1 billion – then in just another 200 years or so, it grew sevenfold. In 2011, the global population reached the 7 billion mark, it stands at almost 7.9 billion in 2021, and it's expected to grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100.

This dramatic growth has been driven largely by increasing numbers of people surviving to reproductive age, and has been accompanied by major changes in fertility rates, increasing urbanization and accelerating migration. These trends will have far-reaching implications for generations to come.

The recent past has seen enormous changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. In the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children each; by 2015, total fertility for the world had fallen to below 2.5 children per woman. Meanwhile, average global lifespans have risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to  72.6 years in 2019.

In addition, the world is seeing high levels of urbanization and accelerating migration. 2007 was the first year in which more people lived in urban areas than in rural areas, and by 2050 about 66 per cent of the world population will be living in cities.

These megatrends have far-reaching implications. They affect economic development, employment, income distribution, poverty and social protections. They also affect efforts to ensure universal access to health care, education, housing, sanitation, water, food and energy. To more sustainably address the needs of individuals, policymakers must understand how many people are living on the planet, where they are, how old they are, and how many people will come after them.

Did you know?

• More than 40 per cent of women around the world cannot make decisions on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.
• As few as one in four women across low- and middle income countries are realizing their desired fertility.
• A woman dies every two minutes due to pregnancy or childbirth (and in conflict settings, the number of deaths is twice as high).
• Nearly one third of women have experienced intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence or both.
• Just six countries have 50 per cent or more women in parliament.
• More than two thirds of the 800 million people globally who cannot read are women.

Source: UNFPA