Palestinian women experience major poverty induced by loss of spouses, UN says

Palestinian women experience major poverty induced by loss of spouses, UN says
UN News Centre

15 February 2005 – Palestinian women are suffering massively from malnutrition, especially when they are pregnant and nursing, and have high rates of poverty as widowed heads of household, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report to a UN women's rights panel.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) says that during a home visit programme in the period under review, October 2003 to September 2004, "69.7 per cent of 1,768 expectant women, within one month of delivery, were found to be anaemic," Mr. Annan's report to the Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) says.

Israel's policy of restricting the movement of goods and persons "impacted greatly on food security, which led to a decline in both the quantity and quality of food of 73 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza populations, with four out of 10 households identified as chronically insecure" by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the report says.

Delaying pregnant women at Israeli checkpoints has resulted in "women delivering their babies while waiting to pass, which has led to maternal and infant deaths," it says. These delays also negatively affected women's access to family planning and obstetric care, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) says.