National Alliance on Maternal Health and Human Rights

About NAMHHR

National Alliance for Maternal Health and Human Rights (NAMHHR) was started on 20th January 2010. Several civil society organizations from seven states of India got together and agreed on the need to strengthen maternal health as an issue of women’s human rights, given the sheer scale of the problem at seventy to eighty thousand women dying each year in India of preventable causes related to maternity.
The group recognizes that there is an urgent need for women's organizations, health organizations, groups working on law and human rights, and mass-based organizations to come together on this issue. Strong rights-based strategies are needed to build greater accountability for these thousands of preventable deaths among women in India.

Need for NAMHHR

Maternal health and maternal mortality is an issue of social inequity, as it is faced by the most marginal communities and women in vulnerable situations. Maternal mortality is also the one-point indicator on the quality of primary health services, and poor health systems that fail to provide healthcare for low income communities. It is affected by many social determinants affecting women’s health including gender discrimination, social exclusion and discrimination, displacement, violence, conflict, and the lack of basic necessities such as nutrition, livelihoods, safe water and sanitation.

Rights Based Strategies for Improving Maternal Health

• Community Empowerment through organizing, monitoring and Jan Sunwais
• Legal Strategies
• Media Advocacy
• Information dissemination: Studies and evidence building
• Legislative advocacy
• State PIP recommendations
• Capacity building
• Budget tracking

Proceed to NAMHHR blog