The right to abortion, among the great successes of population policy: SG

Monica Mateos-Vega

Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday November 24, 2022, p. eleven

In half a century, the country’s population policy has had several successes, including the fact that the suspension of pregnancy has become a women’s right in 10 states, and we go for moresaid Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez, undersecretary for Human Rights, Population and Migration of the Ministry of the Interior.

During the ceremony to commemorate 50 years of cooperation between Mexico and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), held at the Franz Mayer museum on Tuesday afternoon, the official highlighted that in five decades the Mexican fertility rate it went from 7 to 2.08 children per woman, while infant mortality dropped from 76.7 to 12.8 per thousand live births, in addition to the fact that adolescent pregnancy has halved, going from 134 to 68 births per thousand teenagers.

In other words, he pointed out, cooperation with UNFPA It has not only enriched the country’s public policies, but has helped to consolidate one of the few State guidelines that has achieved an evolution and results that should be highlighted..

Today, he reiterated, “the Mexican family is smaller, with 3.4 members on average, half of what we had in the 1970s. In five decades, life expectancy increased by 16 years for women and 15 for men.

There is a very significant change in the population structure: the median age went from 15 to 29 years and today 38 percent of the total population are adults between 30 and 59 years of age. We must assume that population aging is imminent and the current trend towards a feminization of old age is consolidating.

Encinas spoke of the urgency of postpone the age of maternity and paternity, since currently there are more than a thousand births with parents under 19 years of age. We have to eradicate the patriarchal culture, machismo, unions and child maternity, which this year register more than 9 thousand mothers under 14 years of age.

In her speech, Martha Delgado Delgado, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, celebrated that since 1972 Mexico has “a strategic partner that provides financial and technical assistance to improve Mexican living conditions, but also our instruments to plan and envision a better future.

The United Nations Population Fund has been key in the generation, analysis and use of sociodemographic data to formulate public policies that have allowed us to gradually overcome poverty, reduce inequalities and guarantee the human, economic, social and environmental rights of the population. country.

Created in 1969, UNFPA particularly supports developing nations, at the express request of their governments. The celebration for the 50 years of its presence in Mexico coincided with the announcement that the world population reached 8 billion.

Alanna Armitage, representative of the fund in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, stressed that our country It has been a world benchmark in population policies thanks to the firm will of its governments.

He pointed out that reflection at this time should focus on the fact that “the progress that has allowed the population to reach 8 billion people has not been enjoyed equitably. Focusing only on the numbers detracts from the main challenges, for example, the oppression of women.

The societies that prosper are those that guarantee the empowerment and autonomy of the female sector. Women’s reproductive health and rights must be protected, regardless of demographic trends. We must remind the world that we are much more than a number. We share a planet and its resources in a fair and wise way.