User:Dawit nima/sandbox

Background

Ethiopia is the oldest independent and second populous country in Africa located in the North Eastern part of Africa, also known as the Horn of Africa. A projection from the 2007 census, it has a total of 90 million inhabitants in 2015 (CSA 2015) The sex ratio between male and female is almost equal; women in the reproductive age group constitute 23.4% of the population. The total fertility rate has declined from 5.5 in the year 2000 down to 4.1 in 2014. (EDHS 2014)

General health status in Ethiopia

There are remarkable achievements that have been made on the health status of Ethiopians in the last few decades. The average life expectancy for an Ethiopian has increased from 45 years in 1990 to 64 years in 2014, which is higher than the African average (58years) but lower than the global average of 70 years. This makes Ethiopia one of the six countries that made top individual gains since 1990. This achievement is attributed to the dramatic drop in the under five mortality (U5MR) and an improvement in other socio-economic determinants of health in general. The U5MR has dropped from 204/1000 live births in 1990 to 64/1000 live births in 2013, the target for achieving MDG4 being 67/1000 live births. Thus Ethiopian has achieved the MDG 4 by the year 2013 well ahead of the proposed time for 2015.

Women’s Status in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia women in reproductive age constitute about the quarter of the entire population of 90 million. Around 80% of the labor force is engaged in agriculture and 84% live in rural parts of the country. Poverty is multidimensional and its impact is different for men and for women. Forty three percent (43%) of rural women aged 10years and above are economically active mostly engaged in agricultural activity. • Women in Ethiopia highly contribute for the development of livestock production. But they have very little control on the income. According to the federal civil service commission report in 2005, only 33% of the civil servants were women and 98.2% of women employees were working in lower position. At federal level only 13% of the women were at professional level. In the Informal sector, however, 64.93% are women concentrated in a low paying job. • Women in Ethiopia are engaged with the triple role of production, reproduction and household duties. On an average a rural woman will spend 15 - 18 hours a day on agricultural and domestic activities

• Eleven percent of women are married to a man with more than one wife and Sixty-three percent of women in Ethiopia are married by age 18, compared with just 14% of men

Gender difference on age at first sex

• 62% women and 18% of men age 25-49 were sexually active by the age of 18, i.e., Women start sexual activity about four and a half years earlier than men (median age of 16.6 years for women and 21.2 years for men) Maternal wellbeing is crucial for the nations development. Majority of maternal deaths occur in the peri-partum period and deliveries attended by a skilled provider were shown to improve both maternal and neonatal survival. In Ethiopian most of the deliveries occur at home and unattended by skilled provider

Skilled birth attendance and Maternal Mortality trend in Ethiopia

HIV Sero – prevalence in adults aged between 15-49years in Ethiopia is estimated at 1.5% [5.5% urban, 0.7% rural}. However, the Prevalence in women is about double than the prevalence in men, 1.9% versus 1%, respectively. Seventy four percent of women had a FGM out of which, 6% have their vaginas sewn closed.<refhttp://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR255/FR255.pdf</ref>

Maternal Health

Good progress has been registered in maternal mortality reduction, a 69% reduction according to UN estimates from the 1400/100000 live births to 420/100,000 live births in 2013. Maternal wellbeing is crucial for the nations development and majority of the maternal deaths occur at the time of delivery. A skilled birth attendance has been shown to improve the outcomes of both maternal and neonatal outcomes. In Ethiopia only 21 -34% % of deliveries were attended by trained health professional, (HMIS) the remaining majority were attended by either 28 TBA (28 %) or by a relative or some other person 61 % and 5 % deliver without any type of assistance at all. HIV Sero – prevalence in adults aged between 15-49years in Ethiopia is estimated at 1.5% [5.5% urban, 0.7% rural}. However, the Prevalence in women is about double than the prevalence in men, 1.9% versus 1%, respectively. Seventy four percent of women had a FGM out of which, 6% have their vaginas sewn closed. Around 8% of all marriages occur after through abduction.

Violence against women (VAW)

VAW is a global phenomenen and it does not discriminate between countries and socio-economic variables. In Ethiopia the most important for of VAW include physical (Intimate partner Violence) and sexual violence. A study done Kofele, (Oromia region, Arsi, Ethiopia) in 2004 showed the lifetime and the 12 months Prevalence of physical violence among married women was 64% and 55%, respectively. Another study performed in North-west Ethiopia (Dabat High school) in 2005 revealed that Sexual harassment was seen in 44% of the students and rape was experienced by 33.3% of sexually active students. At a tertiary level of education the sexual violence was also alarmingly high as this was also confirmed by a study conducted at Addis Ababa University in 2004 on more than 600 students, where Sexual harassment was experienced by 58% in life time and 41.8% in the last one year, rape was experienced by 12.7% of the students, and 27.5% of the student had escaped an attempted rape