Safe and Sound: a concert with a strong message

By Tova O’Brien

Every day five women in the Pacific die during pregnancy or childbirth – that is nearly 2,000 women every year, and it is happening in our own backyard.

A concert with an all female line-up in Wellington tonight, Safe and Sound, aims to get people thinking about what they can do to help.

The maternal mortality rates in the pacific are some of the world’s worst.

“It’s empowering for us to think that we can raise awareness about other issues for other women in other parts of the world,” says musician Jesse Chambers.

A lack of family planning, anti-natal care, safe and clean birthing equipment and skilled birth attendants, combined with the often remote geography of Pacific counties, are just some of the issues women face.

“Families carrying their wives and mothers for hours in canoes and by hand, in hand-made stretchers just to get to health services because they’re having problems while they’re giving birth,” says Joanna Spratt of Family Planning International.

High levels of violence and discrimination against women are another serious concern.

“Nations that we thought would be quite up with the play, how a lot of women in those nations are being treated – their basic human rights have been stripped from them,” says musician Lisa Tomlins.

These are all things the event’s organisers and performers say are easy for Kiwis to take for granted.

“The lack of supplies and the lack of beds and support for health professionals, who are doing a wonderful job on the ground, is quite heartbreaking to hear,” says Ms Spratt.

Although pregnancy is one of the greatest killers of Pacific women, up to 98 percent of those deaths are preventable.

“I find that it is terrible enough that women die, that families lose a wife, daughter, sister – but on top of that we know what to do, how to do it,” says Ms Spratt.

The event organisers hope that is something they can help achieve by raising just a little more awareness.

3 News