The APJPH and our owners, the Asia Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health, support health and equality for all and we advocate strongly for the health of women and against violence.
The WHO issued the following statement last year.
“On this International Women’s Day, we imagine a world where every woman and girl has access to quality and affordable health care, a world in which women and girls can freely exercise their sexual and reproductive health rights, and one where all women and girls are treated and respected as equals”.
In the APJPH we have frequently advocated for the Sustainable Development Goals which include providing everyone, including all women and children, with access to health care and the abolition of malnutrition. Girls need to stay in school for as long as boys and this contributes to improved infant and child health. On this day we remember the impact of the COVID19 pandemic and the continuing climate disaster on public health. Both of these public health catastrophes have a disproportionate impact on women and children (1).
They present us all with ongoing challenges
Violence against women remains a major public health problem. In 2021 the WHO published the Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women. This includes the statement:
“Although intimate-partner violence and sexual coercion are the most common and “universal” types of violence affecting women and girls, in many parts of the world violence takes on special characteristics according to cultural and historical conditions. This includes murders in the name of honour (so-called “honour killings”), trafficking of women and girls, female genital mutilation, and violence against women in situations of armed conflict.”
The IMF reports that 40 million women children and men are trapped in forced labour and sexual exploration. Human trafficking is a $150 billion business for organized crime. 25 million victims are in the East Asia and Pacific regions (2).
The European Union has established an anti-trafficking website to promote its vision for a safe world for all. The top five non-EU countries as regards citizenship of trafficking victims in the EU are Nigeria, China, Ukraine, Morocco and India.
Within Europe one of the major sources of trafficked women in Ukraine. The invasion of Ukraine has triggered a massive refugee flow, mainly of women and children. These refugees are at risk of being trafficked into the sex industries of Western Europe by various criminal organisations. Of course, the children are all at risk of malnutrition.
Until the COVID pandemic and the recent war, some progress was being made to improve the health of women. However, following the recent setbacks concerted public health efforts to resume the momentum of health improvement.
Reference
- Binns C, Lee MK, Kagawa M, et al. Infant Feeding Guidelines for the Asia Pacific Region. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2018:1010539518809823.
- Caballero Anthony M. A Hidden Scourge IMF Report on Trafficking SE Asia. Finance and Development 2018;September 2018 18-21.
Colin Binns, MBBS, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Wah Yun Low, PhD
Managing Editor, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health
Immediate Past-President, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Victor Hoe Chee Wai, MBBS, PhD
Vice-President, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health
Head, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
