‘A Woman’s Place’ Is Leading Your Country To Better Healthcare

By Pelagie Boko-Collins

I am looking at a photo from this May’s G7 Health Minister’s meeting in Japan. Aside from the fact that this group, discussing global health issues, contains just one representative from the entire African continent (remember more than one in five people on earth live here), one other thing jumps out: Of the eleven people standing on the stage, just one is a woman.

This isn’t surprising. While 70 percent of healthcare around the world is delivered by women (and 90 percent of frontline health work), we make up only a quarter of people in leadership and decision-making positions/roles.

Depressingly, a recent report from the UN’s Development Programme revealed that most people, whether men or women, hold fundamental biases against women. Meanwhile the WHO report that gender norms and stereotypes often affect the roles that women occupy. I know this first hand. When I began my career researching the insects that spread disease, starting with malarial mosquitoes, I was discouraged and told that it was “too dirty for women”.

Today I am so glad that I ignored this terrible advice. My experience led me to a key role supporting my country, Benin, to eliminate the painful and blinding disease trachoma – confirmed by the WHO this May. Just a few years ago 3.4m people in Benin, a third of the country, were at risk of losing their sight to this agonising disease.

Trachoma is caused by bacteria that, over repeated infections, cause scarring which turns the eyelashes inwards so that they scrape against the eye. This leads to irreversible sight loss and pain that is, I am told, like having sand or thorns in your eyes.

But the disease is preventable and the story of our fight against it, and other neglected tropical diseases, is among the great public health successes of the 21st century – thanks to coordinated efforts from governments at national, regional and local level, international donors and organisations like my own, Sightsavers. Earlier this year it was confirmed that both Benin and Mali had become the sixth and seventh countries in Africa to eliminate the disease as a public health problem. With continued funding, coordination and determination, more will follow.

Women are playing a key role in this fight at all levels. Last year Honourable Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda MP, Minister of Health in Malawi, celebrated her country becoming the first in southern Africa to eliminate trachoma. Meanwhile many thousands of women are working on-the-ground in the fight. For example, the thousands of female community drug distributers we train every year in countries where they are still actively treating people for trachoma. These are the volunteers playing a vital role in elimination as they go door-to-door in their local area, building people’s trust in treatment and making sure that no-one is left behind.

I first became interested in trachoma because eye-seeking flies are one of the ways that the disease spreads from person to person. If you can control the flies, you can reduce transmission. When I was employed by the government I fought for the creation of a national programme for trachoma and other neglected tropical diseases. Since joining Sightsavers I have led our Beninese programme to undertake some of the final surgeries for people with advanced cases and supported the government writing and collating the evidence to prove that we have achieved elimination.

I wonder how many more women could be taking leadership positions if we removed the barriers that prevent women exercising their right to get an education, go to work or even the chance to vote to change the status quo. But progress towards women’s rights is stalling. A recent report from the UN estimates that it will take another 300 years to achieve equality. Today more than a billion women across the world are not able to get the healthcare they need and access their rights to participate fully in society.

This is particularly frustrating as women are four times more likely than men to lose their sight from trachoma. This in turn leads to other losses as discrimination and stigma lead to the women being unable to take an active role in their households or no longer able to farm or earn a living and other members of the family may lose work or miss out on education as a result. The WHO estimates that the economic cost from lost productivity is US$8 billion and much of this is felt directly by women.

It is an amazing feeling to know that your work has directly improved millions of people’s lives but frustrating to know that so many other women are being thwarted from achieving their potential. And that the world is missing out on the impact and benefits that they could deliver.

Being a woman in my field hasn’t been easy. I had to leave my eldest child at home to go and train abroad. I’m not sure that would seem like a controversial decision if I were a man. My youngest daughter suffered such bad food allergies that to keep her safe I had to take her with me everywhere I went. She tells me that when she grows up, she wants to be a scientist too.

Meanwhile, as well as helping other countries eliminate trachoma, I have set my sights on ending the scourge of two other neglected tropical disease in Benin: river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. I am busy recruiting and training an army of bug-expert entomologists, to join me – and women are very much encouraged to apply.

Pelagie Boko-Collins is Senior Programme Manager for Benin and Togo at Sightsavers. Her work to eliminate trachoma in Benin was supported through the Accelerate Programme and a group of high-profile donors including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, The ELMA Foundation and Virgin Unite.