Global mamas

Pinoy Kasi : Global mamas

First posted 01:25am (Mla time) May 12, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the May 12, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

FILIPINOS like to boast about how much we love our mothers, but I’ve often wondered how much of that loving translates into real caring.

The other day, I stumbled upon the “State of the World’s Mothers” report for 2006 compiled by Save the Children USA. Apparently, they’ve been doing this global report card for a few years now, rating and ranking countries by how mother-friendly they are, by using several indicators, which I’ll describe shortly.

Before looking at the indicators let’s look at the Philippines’ ranking for the Mothers’ Index, relative to the world, and to Asia. Globally, among 125 countries, the Philippines ranked almost exactly midway at 63rd. Other Asian countries had the following ranks: Japan was 12th, China and Thailand 39th, Vietnam 44th, Malaysia 52nd, Indonesia and Sri Lanka 69th, India 93rd, Laos 94th, Bangladesh 106th, Cambodia, Nepal and Pakistan 107th.

How was the Mothers’ Index constructed? Save the Children combined several indicators to construct a Women’s Index and a Children’s Index, which were then combined to yield the Mother’s Index. This research method makes some sense since a mother’s situation depends on how she is treated as a woman, and how much of support services are available for children.

The indicators for the Women’s Index are lifetime risk of maternal mortality, percent of births attended by skilled personnel, percent of pregnant women with anemia, percent of women using modern family planning, literacy rate for adult females and percent of national government seats held by women.

For the Children’s Index, the indicators are infant mortality rate (how many children die before the age of one), percent of children enrolled in primary school, percent of population with access to safe water and percent of children under the age of 5 who suffer from moderate or severe nutritional wasting.

Certainly, the indicators themselves will have limitations. For example, the percentage of women with national government seats is very important for advancing women’s (and mothers’) concerns but, as we only too sadly know in the Philippines, even having a woman President does not necessarily mean we have a champion for women’s issues.

Mother-friendliest

I’m sure we can all think of many other indicators we’d like included in both the Women’s Index and Children’s Index, but when you’re trying to compare more than a hundred countries, you have to be quite selective in choosing the indicators.

The global report card for mothers does allow us to draw some insights as to how countries might become more mother-friendly. When I first glanced at the rankings, I could already tell that the situation of mothers does not correlate with a country’s economic status.

The oil-rich Middle Eastern countries ranked lower than the Philippines (Saudi Arabia was a dismal 83rd). The United States, the world’s most economically powerful country, ranked only 10th in the Mothers’ Index because its healthcare system is so deficient. US infant mortality rate, for example, is even higher than those of some developing countries.

Similarly, Japan, the world’s second largest economy, ranked only 12th in the Mothers’ Index, the poorest performer among industrialized countries. This shouldn’t be surprising since women’s status continues to lag far behind men’s in that bastion of male conservatism. The contraceptive pill, for example, was not approved in Japan until a few years ago, with Japanese women’s groups grumbling that it took their government more than 30 years to do so and less than a year to allow Viagra for the men.

Not surprisingly, the Scandinavian countries topped the league for mothers, with Sweden leading the pack, followed by Denmark and Finland. These social-welfare states are well known for their package of benefits for mothers, including maternal leaves for as long as two years.

If you look at the Asian countries that do well in the Mothers’ Index, you’ll find that they too generally have strong, state-supported social services. Note that it isn’t just health services that count. The Save the Children report has extensive discussions on the importance of girls’ access to education. Countries where girls are taken out of schools early will also fare poorly with women’s and children’s health.

Surrogate mothers

Being midway in the global rankings tells us we’re not doing too badly, but we certainly can do much more. Our health centers are good, with services like immunizations and prenatal care, but we’re neglecting one vital area, which is family planning. A new twist to this neglect is the way we seem to want to wish away the problem, through the statistics. The Inquirer’s front page yesterday quoted Socio-economic Secretary Romulo Neri as claiming that the population growth rate has dropped. But how can he make this claim when we haven’t had a national census since the year 2000, canceling the 2005 census supposedly because government had no money?

Our mothers deserve more than headline statistics and publicity gimmicks, like the city of Manila herding in more than 3,000 mothers so it could claim a new world record of simultaneous breastfeeding. This in a city that bans the promotion of “artificial” family planning in its health centers.

There is one indicator that is important if we really want to assess our situation, and this is the number of mothers who are forced by economic circumstances to work overseas, separated from their children. I have no exact figures but I am certain this runs into a million at the very least. We have to remember, too, it’s not just overseas work that separates mothers from their children; many of our rural women end up working in urban households as domestic helpers, leaving their children behind.

This Mother’s Day, in many countries throughout the world, children will be honoring Filipino nannies and housekeepers who have become their second mothers. Many Filipinas aren’t just global nannies, they’re now global “nanay” [mothers], global mamas, often at great cost to their own children back home. This Mother’s Day then, we would do well to honor the country’s many surrogate mothers -- the aunts, grandmothers, godmothers, adoptive mothers and many others, men included -- who try to fill the vacuum, no questions asked, no conditions on the love for the children they’ve taken into their homes.