Ivory Coast

Motherhood: A Precarious Condition

The current socioeconomic and political reality in the Ivory Coast makes motherhood creates a very tenuous situation for motherhood, which is adversely impacted by disease, neonatal deaths, and maternal mortality. The fertility rate per woman in The Ivory Coast has declined since 1990 from 6.6 to 4.6 in 2006, with an annual growth rate of 2 percent; the maternal mortality rate is 810 per 100,000 live births. In 2000, neonatal deaths, malaria, and pneumonia were among the leading causes of death among children 5 years of age or younger.

Only about 7 percent of women are estimated to use modern methods of contraception, and abortion is legal only to save the woman's life. Illegal abortions are thought to be a large contributing factor toward the high level of maternal mortality (690 per 1000,000 live births); in a 2004 study, 60 percent of women admitted to gynecological wards in hospitals reporting trying to induce abortion themselves at home. In 2000, the stillbirth rate was estimated at 53 per 1,000 total births, and the neonatal mortality rate was 65 per 1,000 live births. Polygamy and concubinage is widely tolerated and is not a grounds for divorce for women.

Poverty, too, is a prominent indicator of the devalued condition of motherhood in the country. Currently embroiled in internal strife and social unrest, normal economic development activities are stalled and hampered, leaving the majority of the population unemployed, underemployed, and unhealthy. The gross national income per capita in 2007 was $910. Health care is substandard, with one physician per 10,000 people, and the total expenditure [Page 595]on health as a percent of the Gross Domestic Product decreased from 5.3 percent in 2000 to 3.9 percent in 2005. Moreover, while the gross national income per capita is creeping upward, the percentage of out-of-pocket expenditures as a percentage of private expenditures on health was 87.8 percent in 2005. Even during an age of technological advancement, mothers in the Ivory Coast are at high risk for preventable communicable diseases and maternity-related deaths and illnesses. The Ivory Coast ranks last among 66 less developed countries on the Mothers' Index and Women's Index and 64th on the Children's Index, according to the international organization Save the Children.

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