In parts of Ghana, troubled labor is seen as a sign of infidelity, so women stall in calling for emergency care while they try to appease the gods to help with their delivery. In southern Papua New Guinea, women are expected to give birth by themselves, a tradition stemming from a belief that female blood is contaminated and could sicken or even kill a birth attendant. The answer is that people don't care. We assume that women are there. We have never taken enough concern about the rights of women.
Resistance sometimes comes from unexpected quarters.
But with honourable exceptions, this is an issue on which the women's movement in the industrialized nations has raised scarcely more than a murmur. The difference has been a revolutionary regime willing to place the priorities of rural citizens on an equal footing with urban ones, and to grant all Cubans, urban or rural, similar standards of health care. Its demographic profile has come to resemble that of highly industrial countries more than Third World nations. A well-organized system of health centers, known as polyclinics, was initiated to provide ambulatory care throughout the country. The polyclinic-based system delivered a fairly standard set of services and aimed at universal coverage within territorially defined districts.