Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals: The Importance of Providing and Protecting Access to Women’s Healthcare Worldwide

Instead of making progress on women’s and girl’s healthcare and health research, the world only seems to be going backward or remaining stagnant as efforts have been made but have not gone far enough. We’re looming closer to the target that is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that was adopted by all Member States in 2015 (United Nations, 2015), where achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls was made a priority in Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10. However, with just over 5 years left to meet this target, women across the world are still experiencing the effects of the gender health gap and situations are worsening. Unequal health distribution must continue to be addressed, and women’s healthcare such as contraception use, and sexual and reproductive healthcare need to be funded, supported and protected in order to tackle disproportionality and meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the already slow progress of SDG implementation (Shirazi, 2022), with women most disadvantaged as they suffered disproportionately from difficulties accessing healthcare, particularly sexual and reproductive healthcare, childcare, shelter, and disaster relief services (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs). This only added to the already overwhelming international health crisis as funds were directed away from women’s and girl’s health and towards other life-saving services, with a general lack of awareness only worsening the situation (Ghouaibi, 2022). 

Not only in times of health crisis, but also war and economic hardship do we see women’s health and care being sidelined as a priority. The effect migration has on health and the disadvantages it presents is larger on refugee women due to their social status and traditional roles. These women struggle accessing healthcare and in turn suffer from miscarriages, stillbirths, and period poverty due to situations of prostitution, violence, and rape that they are put through due to their migrant status (Atalay and Dinc, 2020). The sooner there is progress and an elevation of discourse, the sooner women no longer suffer to the extremes we are seeing now in Palestine (World Health Organisation, 2023), Syria (United Nations Human Rights Office, 2023), and worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2022).

In a study on refugee women suffering from health problems, 64.6% did not receive medical care due to a lack of education, knowledge or embarrassment (Masterson et al., 2014), which is a figure of evidence that also extends to women suffering with health issues worldwide (Mobi Health News, 2021), not only refugee women, due to the societal taboo of the topic. This is why SDG 5 and 10 are not just simply about men and women being able to compete in the same sports competitions, and women being able to vote; there needs to be real focus on education and collaborative efforts to destigmatise and universalise access to women’s healthcare.

Abortion bans seen in El Salvador, Poland and several U.S states (Centre for Reproductive Rights, 2022) overshadow these genuine issues that women are facing and thwart progress in women’s rights and healthcare. There is great danger in the rise of pro-life discussions particularly at government level, as political reactions of hatred and misogyny are encouraged, instead of engaging thought and compassion regarding a topic where women should be the subjects, not the objects of the debate. Sidelining genuine healthcare needs in favour of restrictive policies is damaging and discourages more women from seeking the necessary medical care they need (Winchester, 2021), and so governments must ensure health and care systems consider and understand women’s circumstances. In doing so, there needs to be improvement in education on women’s health, rather than promoting negative societal attitudes that undermine women’s voices being at the centre of their own healthcare.

Globally, particularly in the North, we see unbalanced concentration in countries' national implementations of certain Sustainable Development Goals which jeopardises potential for progress overall. SDGs 1 and 8, poverty eradication and economic growth, are by far the most widely prioritised (Forestier and Kim, 2020), and this means countries are failing to capitalise on synergies and integrated strategies to ensure a more efficient and effective use of resources (Hegre et al., 2020). A lack of focus and prioritisation of certain SDGs has resulted in gender equality receding and SDG 5 becoming further out of reach in even the most gender equal countries, so it is unlikely that even one country will be able to achieve gender equality by 2030 (World Economic Forum, 2022). This has undoubtedly been worsened by the lack of accessibility and autonomy of women’s healthcare in even the most developed countries, evident in the United Kingdom which has the widest gender health gap in the G20 due to many women’s healthcare services being fragmented and difficult to access (Winchester, 2021), yet its economy is growing faster than almost any other major country (Full Fact, 2024). 

Data from the UN in 2023 shows that just 56% of women in the world are able to make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use, and reproductive healthcare, with some countries such as Mali and Senegal being as low as 5% of women (Roser, 2023). Health researchers have stressed the importance of collaboration across the global North-South divide, as health research cannot benefit low and middle income countries that are the least gender equal when dominated by researchers from the North, but programmes of demand driven and locally led research for development and collaboration that have been successful, have had to stop due to a lack of sponsorship and funding (Kok et al., 2017). If there is no future consideration for these projects, progress will be nonexistent. Thus, these are issues that must be addressed by educating, changing attitudes, spreading awareness, and fighting for recognition and action that focuses on medical misogyny and health inequalities worldwide (United Nations, 2020).

This is why supporting the women in positions of influence and power who fight for women’s healthcare is incredibly important as they make change happen. In Poland, women were central to the general election outcome of the right-wing government that tightened abortion restrictions being ousted from power, with 75% of women who were eligible to vote doing so (McMahon, 2023). This is no doubt linked to political parties running a record number of women candidates for both houses, many running in top positions and making women’s rights and liberal abortion laws a priority (Sieradzka, 2023). This shows that women in leadership positions are more trusted to directly respond to the concerns of the community and allocate funds to health, education and prioritise women's needs, as well as increase research on women’s health issues. 

Hence, it’s no surprise that we are witnessing an international health crisis, as women comprise 70% of the global health workforce, but hold only 25% of senior decision-making roles (World Health Organisation, 2021) and just 5% in top health organisation positions (Batson, Gupta and Barry, 2021), so the invaluable insight and talent from women’s own lived experiences are excluded from discussions that they should be central to. In Rwanda, a decrease in women’s mortality rates corresponded to an increased number of women in leadership roles who made progress in improving the public health of those they represented (United Nations, 2020). This tells us that there is still lots of progress to be made in ensuring that universal access to healthcare is accompanied by women having full participation in leadership and decision-making in order to make the Sustainable Development Goals closer to reach.