Study: Women's health linked to unrest

Governments should keep in focus the status of women in the developing world as they seek to prevent international insurgency, a report released on Wednesday suggested.

High birth rates, rapid urban growth and HIV/AIDS often set the stage for violence, but the Washington-based advocacy group Population Action International said global security analysts tend to overlook such demographic factors.

“What we are suggesting is that demographic trends set the stage,” said Robert Engelman, vice president for research at the group. “They make societies either more prone or less prone to conflict. If people want to address these demographic factors, we argue they can be addressed.”

He said, “What the evidence indicates very strongly is that when the status of women improves, when women’s circumstances improve, it benefits society tremendously. It also has a positive impact on security.”

“Over the long term, investments in women are going to make a real difference. An investment in women is also an investment in global security,” he said. “If you are interested in security, and if you are interested in the long-term future of civil conflicts, then take a look at this connection.”

Access to health care
In a report called “The Security Demographic,” Population Action recommends that governments work to improve women’s access to education, employment, health care and and family planning services in the developing world.

“It’s a shift from short lives and large families, to long lives and small families,” he said in an interview. “Security risks are highest at the earliest stages and they are lowest at the end stages (of the shift). Countries tend to have the highest vulnerability to civil conflict at the beginning of the transition.”

Engelman said the spread of diseases including HIV/AIDS threatened to reverse progress in some areas where improvements in basic hygiene and medical care had helped reduce death rates, particularly among working aged populations.

But Population Action emphasized in its report that demography cannot explain the outbreak of violence in any given instance.

“Generally speaking, if we look at any conflict there are certain historical events that caused it. Anyone could ignore population and look at the specifics of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party in Iraq, for instance,” Engelman said.