Benetton launches Power Her Choices campaign with the UNFPA

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Jul 12, 2017

Benetton on Tuesday announced at the London Summit on Family Planning the launch of Power Her Choices, a partnership campaign with the United Nations Population Fund to protect women from unintended pregnancies.
 

Organized by the Government of the United Kingdom, together with UNFPA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the London Summit on Family Planning brings together governments, institutions and stakeholders to move towards a goal of enabling 120 million additional women to gain access to modern contraception by 2020.
 
Benetton has been heavily involved in human rights and philanthropy, launching campaigns focused on diversity and joining Greenpeace’s 2020 Detox program with H&M in 2016. The Italian company aims to deliver the message that all women and girls have the right to decide freely whether and when to have children.

The new Power Her Choices campaign is intended to raise awareness about family planning and gain additional partners and signatories to the global commitment.
 
In 2016, an estimated 770,000 girls, some as young as ten years old, became mothers, with devastating effects on their health and future (25% of young women in sub-Saharan Africa leave school because of unintended pregnancies. In addition, over 214 million women today lack access to modern contraceptives.
 
"Millions of women and adolescent girls are still waiting for access to modern contraceptives," said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA's Acting Executive Director. "While we have reached thirty million more women over the past five years, thanks to the Family Planning 2020 initiative, we need to step up our commitments, expand our partnerships, and broaden our reach to ensure that no one is left behind."