User:Ketchupandmayyonaise/Women's health

Social and cultural factors

Deeply ingrained cultural, religious, and patriarchal systems within the MENA region perpetuate gender-based power dynamics within communities and lead to discrepancies in healthcare access. In a speech, UNPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid outlined these difficulties and emphasized the need to change cultural and societal norms in order to improve the health of women in the area.

Contraception

Research shows that women in the MENA region use contraception at low rates. Only 14% of women who completed a survey in Jordan said they used condoms with their spouses.

Sexually transmitted infections

In the MENA region, a large number of HIV-positive women contracted the virus from their spouses or partners. In comparison to men, taboos, and discrimination against women living with HIV are more pervasive throughout the MENA region. The MENA region's women are more vulnerable to HIV because of gender inequity. gender-based violence, and restricted access to comprehensive healthcare systems.

Female genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation is still common, impacting around 50 million women and girls in the five countries of Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, and Iraq in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as adolescent women frequently experience a lack of bodily autonomy in the Arab world. According to data, the frequency of FGM among women between the ages of 15 and 49 is high: 94% in Djibouti, 87% in Egypt and Sudan, 19% in Yemen, and 7% in Iraq.

Infertility

A Systematic Review of the Middle East and North Africa found considerable discrepancies in the definitions of infertility, which concerns the distinction between a failure to conceive (clinical or epidemiological) and a failure to have a successful birth (demographic) as causes of infertility; and the differences in the durations of infertility; clinical viewpoints take one year, epidemiological viewpoints two years, and demographic criteria require five years or longer.

Morocco has the highest percentage of infertility in the Middle East and North Africa, with an infertility rate of 56.8%. There is a dearth of research on clinical infertility in the MENA region, with the exception of Iran, which is attributed to a societal reluctance to discuss infertility openly, which makes it difficult for researchers to conduct comprehensive analyses and distribute surveys and insufficient funding from the public and private sectors for infertility-related research proiects in the area.

Child marriage

Approximately one in five young women in the Middle East and North Africa were married before becoming eighteen, and one in twenty-five married before turning fifteen. In Egypt, 17% of women in the 20-24 age group, 13% in Morocco, 28% in Iraq, 8% in Jordan, 6% in Lebanon, and 3% in Algeria were married or engaged before turning 18.

Menstrual cycle

In the MENA region, period poverty and stigma have an influence on girls' education and general well-being. Misinformation and a lack of fundamental knowledge cause girls to miss school during their menstrual cycle and contribute to the prevailing stigma around getting your period.

Cardiovascular disease

Among women in the Middle East, Cardiovascular disease-related morbidity and death are increasing; however, awareness and education on the disease, as well as research, are lacking in the region.

Breast cancer

With an age-standardized incidence rate of 37.5, the MENA region saw 94.7 thousand cases of female breast cancer in 2019. The countries with the highest age-standardized prevalence rates per 100,000 females in the region were Bahrain, Qatar, and Lebanon.

Anaemia

Anaemia affects over one-third of the population in the MENA region, caused by iron deficiencies (ID) or a combination of other factors, with women making up the bulk of those affected. A cross-sectional study found that 40% of Saudi Arabian women in the 15-49 age range suffer from anaemia.

Violence

The COVID-19 epidemic made gender-based violence more common in Arab countries and worsened already-existing health disparities between the sexes, yet millions of women in the MENA region did not receive enough attention when it came to the provision of enhanced protection from gender-based violence.