Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.
Remi Cáceres experienced gender-based violence firsthand. She struggled, got out and today helps other women in Argentina to find an escape valve. But because she is in a wheelchair and is a foreign national, she says the process was even more painful and arduous: "Being a migrant with a disability, it's two or three times harder. You have to empower yourself and it's very difficult."
A new technology that has arrived in rural villages in El Salvador makes it possible for small farming families to generate biogas with their feces and use it for cooking - something that at first sounded to them like science fiction and also a bit smelly.
As human rights increasingly deteriorate, rights defenders are being violently suppressed. Abducted, detained, tortured, and humiliated, many now live one day at a time. They have been told, in no uncertain times, that anything could happen. They are now asking the global community to stand as a witness.
Zé Pequeno cried when he learned that the heirloom seeds he had inherited from his father were contaminated by the transgenic corn his neighbor had brought from the south. Fortunately, he was able to salvage the native seeds because he had shared them with other neighbors.
Zimbabwe holds general elections next month amid growing human rights and press freedom concerns in what analysts say could mar conditions for undisputed poll results.
They haul many kilos of recyclable materials on their backs but receive little in return. These Bolivian women who help clean up the environment from dawn to dusk are fighting for recognition of their work and social and labor rights.
"Anxiety, insomnia and depression have become widespread. We don't sleep well, I wake up three, four times a night," complained Brazilian farmer Roselma de Melo Oliveira, 35, who has lived 160 meters from a wind turbine for eight years.
Using a few dry sticks as fuel, Margarita Ramos of El Salvador lit the fire in her wood stove and set about frying two fish, occasionally fanning the flame, aware that the smoke she inhaled could affect her health.
At five in the morning, when fog covers the streets and the cold pinches hard, Mercedes Marcahuachi is already on her feet ready to go to work in Pachacútec, the most populated area of the municipality of Ventanilla, in the province of Callao, known for being home to Peru's largest seaport.
In almost every conversation I’ve had about gender-based violence (GBV), the question “why don’t they leave?” inevitably comes up.
After many years of working in this space, I have learned that the answer is not as simple as we think. The nature of GBV is quite complex. Numerous layers and factors affect individuals both internally and externally.
Sexual harassment and discrimination are daily realities for women on public transport in Chile and also an obstacle for plans to expand mass transit in order to reduce pollution in several cities in this South American country.
"The biodigester really gives a huge boost to those who have the courage to do things," said Maria das Dores Alves da Silva, based on her own experience as a 63-year-old small farmer.
Viviana Mazur is a doctor at the Santojanni Hospital in Mataderos, a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She has witnessed the advances in women's rights in Argentina, where until 2020 abortion was only allowed on two grounds, while it is now available on demand up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
There is still a long way to go before the LGBTI population in Central America stops being discriminated against and begins to make progress in gaining recognition of their full rights, including the possibility of changing their name to match their gender identity, in the case of trans people.
Adopting a “healthy housing” approach is improving the living conditions of rural Peruvian women like Martina Santa Cruz, a 34-year-old farmer who lives with her husband and two children in the village of Sacllo, 2,959 meters above sea level in the Andes highlands municipality of Calca.
Peru’s agro-export industry is growing steadily and reached record levels in 2022. But this has not had a favorable impact on human development in this South American country, where high levels of inequality, poverty, childhood anemia and malnutrition persist, as well as complaints about the poor quality of employment in the sector.
Snails and slime are usually followed by the thought ‘EEW!’ from most people … some might even scream at seeing a snail near them.
For Dr Paul Kinoti, however, these slimy creatures could earn him international recognition because his research on snails landed his institution, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), a Ksh. 127 million (USD 1 million) grant.[related_articles]
Menstrual hygiene management is elusive for millions of poor women and girls in Latin America, who suffer because their living conditions make it difficult or impossible for them to access resources and services that could make menstruation a simple normal part of life.
When the residents of Armstrong, a town of 15,000 in western Argentina, began to meet to discuss a renewable energy project, they agreed that there could be many positive effects and that it was not just a question of doing their bit in the global effort to mitigate climate change.
Nearby is an agroecological garden and a plant nursery, further on there are pens for raising pigs and chickens, and close by, in an old one-story house with a tiled roof, twelve women sew pants and blouses. All of this is happening in a portion of a public park near Buenos Aires, where popular cooperatives are fighting the impact of Argentina's long-drawn-out socioeconomic crisis.