“I will never allow my daughter to go through what happened to me,” she told UNFPA, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency.

What happens when conflict displaces tens of thousands of people in hotspots like Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Ukraine, and women die every day in childbirth or pregnancy?

UNFPA is there, equipping displacement camps and medical personnel with lifesaving supplies.

When an earthquake tumbles whole city blocks, it puts contraceptives onto emergency relief convoys alongside kits for delivering babies and medicines to stop internal bleeding.

When a cyclone slashes through remote island communities, the agency sends contraceptives just as it sends sterile medical equipment, including condoms, oral and injectable contraceptives, contraceptives implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs).

Why? Because contraceptives are part of lifesaving humanitarian care.

This may be counterintuitive to some, but it is a settled fact in the eyes of medical science, humanitarian responders and women themselves.

Even outside emergency settings, having access to modern, safe contraceptives empowers women to make their own decisions about their fertility, which in turn reduces unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions, improves health outcomes and lowers the risk of maternal and child mortality.