New Year Wish May Mothers' Lives be Saved. Sumie Ishii, Executive Director, JOICFP

I would like to send my best wishes
to you all for 2007.

Universal Access to Reproductive Health

Great news was brought to JOICFP and other people promoting reproductive health all over the world in November 2006. Under Goal 5 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aiming for the betterment of expectant mothers' health, a new target "to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015" was added. It was based on the proposal made by the World Summit in 2005 that reviewed the progress of achieving the MDGs in the past five years since its adoption in 2000. The news gave all the more pleasure to us at JOICFP as we energetically promoted advocacy to include "universal access to reproductive health in the MDGs" in concert with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and relevant international NGOs and NGOs in developing countries in 2005 and 2006.

Women dying from induced abortions amount to 70,000 a year

Despite desperate efforts made in many communities in the world, the number of women losing their lives because of pregnancies and deliveries has not declined in the world, especially in developing countries. It is estimated that as many as 70,000 women die every year due to illegal or unsafe abortions, and that more than 19 million women suffer from the sequelae of operations.
Furthermore, although the number of newly infected HIV cases and people dying from AIDS fell slightly in 2006, the number of women infected with HIV sharply rose. Several years have passed since the "feminization of HIV infection" became an issue, however, this phenomenon has not ceased to grow. The latest statistics released in November 2006 reveal that about half of HIV positives are women, and that HIV positive expectant mothers to whom treatment is applied to prevent vertical transmission to their fetuses are as few as nine percent. Almost all of them were infected with HIV from their husbands or single partners.

The theme of activities this year is "Betterment of Expectant Mothers' Health." JOICFP has decided to set the theme of activities for this year to be "to contribute to the betterment of expectant mothers' health" as this target was included in Goal 5 of the MDGs. We will pour all our strength into achieving the goal through extending reproductive health services worldwide. In order to make the theme more popularly understood, we continue to set our slogan to be "Save Mothers' Lives" as in the previous year.
We have received a complaint in the past several years that it is hard to understand what JOICFP is doing. We unified the public image of JOICFP to make our activities easier to understand and to invite stronger cooperation and support from society. The logo of JOICFP combines the picture of the earth and the letters of JOICFP. Please look at this logo.

Dots of different colors comprising the earth symbolize individual persons. Various colors symbolize the diversity of individuals. This 'earth mark' indicates that JOICFP works from the standpoint of individual persons while valuing the diversity of people on the earth, and deepening mutual understanding among them.
Wherever and whenever we carry out our programs, our view is focused on individual persons living in their respective places. This stance is clearly expressed in JOICFP's slogan, "Health for each individual brings the world closer to happiness."
We look to you to evaluate how much our efforts come to fruition. I would be glad if you could feel JOICFP is more of a friend to you by seeing our efforts under the logo and slogan.