di Francesco Volpi,Interris, May 12, 2016

War and violence, an absent
State, poverty, and disease. When the world celebrates
Mother’s Day, we should remember those corners of the world where
motherhood is a daily hell. 

A fight against discrimination,
fundamentalism, barbaric practices and attempts to rape. The latest
report from Save the Children on “The State of the mothers of the
world” (published one year ago) transforms mothers into the living
symbol of a more and more divided land between wealth and poverty. On
the one hand countries such as Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark
where welfare state and family policies make the most beautiful and
natural “craft” in the world. 

On the other hand, there are
perpetual tribulations of millions of women in the Third World –
especially in Africa – who are forced to survive with their
children in conditions that are often inhumane.


Here is a list of 10 places
where it is most difficult to be a mother:

1. SOMALIA:
   Two decades of civil war have made this country the worst in the
   world for mothers. The
   State is weak, while the educational and the medical facilities are
   drained. Violence against women and teenagers is rife and
   institutions are incapable of decisive action. Evil is often
   experienced as something “normal.” Not to mention the Islamist
   threat coming from Al Shabab, the Somali Al Qaeda cell, which is
   responsible for numerous massacres. 
    
2. REPUBLIC
   OF CONGO: The conflict between the government and rebels, finished
   then resumed in 2008,
   makes this African country a living hell. 
   Violence, however, is
   mostly committed by armed groups, non-governmental militias,
   ex-military and tribal groups, who carry out raids and looting, with
   consequent massacres of civilians. Besides, malnutrition kills about
   38,000 people every month. The risk of death during childbirth and
   HIV transmission during pregnancy is still high for women here. 
    
3. CENTRAL
   AFRICAN REPUBLIC: the country, which has been recently visited by
   Pope Francis who officially opened the Jubilee of Mercy, is still in
   terrible conditions. It
   lives a chronic and prolonged health emergency. The political crisis
   and violence that have been ravaging the country since 2013 have
   aggravated the general lack of health services and 72 percent of
   health facilities were damaged or destroyed. Infant mortality rate
   reaches about 93 deaths every 1,000 births. 
    
4. MALI:
   Rapes are almost at the order of the day. 
   A few years ago, hundreds
   of women went out in the streets in Timbuktu, holding their
   daughters by the hand, to
   protest against sexual violence, mainly at the hands of jihadist
   groups. The reaction was swift: a few days later, a lot of “mothers
   courage” (the name that was given to them with admiration by
   Western observers) and daughters were raped in retaliation.
   Moreover: violence leads to unwanted pregnancies that make
   infanticide cases more frequent. 
    
5. NIGER:
   In 2012 it led Save The Children’s chart of the worst places where
   to be mothers. 
   Having
   lost 5 positions does not indicate, however, a significant
   improvement. About a mother out of 16 dies in childbirth. Women, in
   general, have to fight against poverty, disease, discrimination and
   social exclusion. Besides, the country is often attacked by Boko
   Haram, which frequently resorts to sexual violence. 
    
6. GAMBIA:
   Since 2015, it has been an “Islamic Republic”, like Iran and
   Afghanistan, with all the consequences it can have on mothers’ and
   women’s condition in general.  
   In
   recent times, infibulation and other female genitals mutilation have
   been discouraged. Infant mortality rate reaches an average of 72
   deaths within the first year of life per 1000 newborns. 
    
7. IVORY
   COAST: Recently, international programs have been implemented to
   contrast mortality among infants and pregnant women. 
   There is a high number of teenage mothers (between 13 and 19 years
   old). Moreover, women in the Ivory Coast must deal with diseases
   (Ebola at the end of 2014 wreaked havoc in the country) and sexual violence.
    
8. CHAD:
   It is one of the poorest countries in the world, where only 28% of
   the adult population can read and write. 
   A mom deprived of literacy is a woman who will not cater fully to
   the needs of their children. Boko Haram is active in Chad and Niger,
   and some terrorist attacks were carried out by female suicide
   bombers.
    
9. GUINEA
   BISSAU: It is one of the leading nations as to maternal mortality
   rate, which is mainly concentrated in the eastern region. 
   This is due to lack of health facilities, often far from small
   villages, where dozens of mothers live. 
    
10. SIERRA LEONE AND HAITI:
    According to Save the Children, the two of them share the same
    position. After the Ebola outbreak and the consequences
    of a long civil war, Sierra Leone must come to terms with the
    highest maternal mortality rate: 3,100 women die every year due to
    childbirth-related complications. 
    Haiti is the only non-African
    country among the 10 worst ones where to be mothers. The island is
    still suffering the consequences of the 2010 earthquake. Giving
    birth to a child, but also raising and educate them is difficult
    there.
    

There is not only Africa, of
course. The report mentions also mothers’ tragic condition in
Bangladesh, Cambodia,
India, Peru and Vietnam and Zimbabwe, where mortality rate of
pregnant women and infants is still high.


THE ITALIAN CASE: Italy is
light years away from the hell we have been talking about so far.
Yet, according to another Save the Children report,
mothers are forced into a difficult acrobatics between the choice of
maternity and family care, which still weights mainly on their
shoulders and are rendered even more onerous by lack of support
services on the territory, while having to deal with a labor market
that penalizes them a priori,
as women, and becomes an even bigger problem when they decide to have
children. 
The ranking of the regions show more favorable conditions
for motherhood sees only the northern regions at the top, whereas the
last places are reserved to southern regions. 
The worst, depending on
the considered indicator, are Calabria and Campania, where the State
is all too often absent.