Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to speak to the subamendment, but I want to speak to the whole concept that my motion originally was trying to supersede other motions. If you read my motion, it isn't. It is proposing a study. Why would I want to bump Ukraine, especially when, with regard to the study I am proposing, we heard from the ambassador-designate from Ukraine that Ukrainian women are being raped by Russian soldiers regularly?
These are the kinds of women who need access to safe and legal abortion. These are the kinds of women who need the services we're talking about to see if they have gotten any sexually transmitted diseases from the Russian soldiers. These are the women we want to talk about. They are fleeing as refugees to countries, two of which do not actually allow safe, legal abortion.
We're talking about Ukraine actually, but I still want to make the point, Mr. Chair, that I am not trying to supersede anything. Ukraine is a dire emergency. We are not done with COVID, or at least COVID is not done with us, if we look at the BA.4 and BA.5 strains that are now happening around the world. Yes, vaccine equity is very important. These two are really important things. No one is trying to supersede anything here.
I would just like to note that I brought forward a motion very similar to this in December. I don't know what happened to it. I'm on the subcommittee. Once again, it was a motion on sexual and reproductive health and the rights of women and girls around the world. The need for those services worsened during COVID. I don't know what happened to it. It was still bumped.
I just need to say that I hope we don't keep bumping this motion constantly because it is as urgent. Women are actually dying. I just want to read to you here that two million women were hospitalized in this year alone because of unsafe abortions. Sixty per cent of unintended pregnancies end in abortion and 45% of those are unsafe. Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for girls or young women between the ages of 15 and 19 in 2020.
This has been going on for a long time, exacerbated by COVID, by the Ukrainian war and by conflicts around the world, especially where rape has become a weapon of war. It's no longer a casualty of war.
These are some of the things I want to talk about. These are important issues. Women are dying. Their lives can be spared if we make this an important issue to study. It does not have priority over Ukraine or over vaccine equity. I'm not suggesting that at all.
Somehow this committee is going to have to study this issue that's been bouncing around since December of 2021. I just don't understand why it is not important. When you think of the number of women in the African region and in the Americas where the rates of maternal mortality, gender-based violence, adolescent pregnancy and poverty are rising, this has to be important to people. We have hundreds of thousands of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth because they don't have access to safe, legal abortions.
These are important issues. Women are dying. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm not pre-empting anything. I don't want to pre-empt Ukraine and I don't want to pre-empt vaccine equity because these are urgent issues, but I do think that somewhere along the way women have to become an urgent issue as well. Their deaths have to be meaningful to this committee.
Thank you.