Women's Health

Women Need Support and Understanding after Miscarriage

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
Recently, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, wrote a piece sharing about her miscarriage. I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second, she wrote. She is part of a growing list of celebrities who have publicly shared their experiences with miscarriages.

Empowering Women through Wisdom

By Caryll Tozer and Soraya M. Deen
During the COVID 19 lockdown in Sri Lanka, seven women from diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds came together to deliver Wisdom and their message that women must be empowered and their voices for national unity must be heard through this movement.

Reduce Military Spending – the Much-Needed Response to Violence Against Women

By Maria Victoria (Mavic) Cabrera Balleza
The COVID-19 pandemic is NOT the biggest pandemic the world confronts at the moment, despite over 69 million cases and 1.5 million deaths worldwide.1 If it’s not COVID, what is it then? It is violence against women!

Lost in Translation? Understanding Relevance of Women, Peace & Security in Arms Control & Disarmament

By Renata H. Dalaqua
“What does the Women, Peace and Security Agenda have to do with arms control and disarmament?”. Under varying formulations, this question keeps coming up whenever someone refers to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda as a basis for ensuring that women’s voices and their specific security needs were taken into account in multilateral arms control discussions.

In India, Ending FGM Demands Truth and Transparency

By Masooma Ranalvi
“My daughter is eight years old. In May 2017, I had her ‘Khatna,’ her circumcision, done. I had taken her to a traditional cutter. Once back home I made her sleep on the bed. After some time, around 4:00 p.m. I took her to the bathroom, she was bleeding as if she had started her menses. It seemed like she was urinating blood. By 6:00 p.m. my daughter had been bleeding so heavily, the blood had soaked three bed sheets and I was very worried.  And my daughter was quiet and she also kept asking me if she will be fine.” Excerpt from:  How I got her from the hands of death: WeSpeakOut study 2018

Low-cost Technology can Have Life-changing Impacts for Rural Women

By Samira Sadeque
Access to technology which is relatively inexpensive to deploy can have a life-changing impact for rural women, social scientist Valentina Rotondi told IPS.

Impact of COVID-19 on Women and Children

By Mary Robinson
The impacts of crises are never gender-neutral and COVID-19 is no exception. The pandemic has resulted in increased rates of violence against women and has exacerbated challenges in accessing justice. Women are losing their livelihoods faster than men.

UN Women Calls for Accelerating its Unfinished Business

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Twenty-five years ago, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing set a path-breaking agenda for women’s rights. As a result of the two-week gathering with more than 30,000 activists, representatives from 189 nations unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

How Two Young Women Are Working to Improve Access to Contraception in Trinidad and Tobago

According to a 2016 Guttmacher Institute study, 60% of girls ages 15-19 in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy do not have access to modern contraceptive methods. Women Deliver Young Leaders Kizanne James and Khadija Sinanan dive deeper into stigma around contraceptive use in their home country of Trinidad and Tobago as part of their projects as World Contraception Day Ambassadors.

It was Meant to Be a Ground-breaking Year for Gender Equality but COVID-19 Widened Inequalities

By Neena Bhandari
Sixteen-year-old Suhana Khan had just completed her grade 10 exams in March, when India imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, she has been spending her mornings and evenings doing household chores, from cooking and cleaning to fetching drinking water from the tube well. 

IPS Webinar: Gender Equality Crucial in ‘Building Back Better’ Post-COVID-19

By Miriam Gathigah
While men are more likely to die from COVID-19, women are facing the full blow of the socio-economic fallout from the ongoing pandemic as well as seeing a reversal in equality gains made over the last two decades, says an all-women panel of international thought leaders, who met virtually during a discussion convened by IPS.

How Senegal is Providing Reproductive Health Services to those Who can Least Afford it

By Neena Bhandari
Pregnant with her second child, 30-year-old Ndiabou Niang was enduring pelvic pain, but couldn’t afford to access prenatal care in Diabe Salla, a village on the outskirts of the small town of Thilogne in north-east Senegal. Her husband was unemployed and her earnings of under CFAF 10,000 (17 USD) from selling seasonal fruits in the local market were insufficient to make ends meet.

Sudan, Where Illegal Abortions remain Dangerous and Deadly

By Reem Abbas
Omnia Nabil*, a Sudanese doctor, who worked in one of the largest hospitals in Khartoum, the country’s capital, was devastated to witness the deaths of 50 young women who had unsafe abortions during a space of just three months.

Women Leadership Is Key to Successful Post-COVID-19 Era, Says Cherie Blair

By Cecilia Russell
The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns falls heavily on the shoulders of women even in the global north. Women take the brunt of housework and caretaking duties, homes schooling, working from home and perhaps looking after elderly parents, says Cherie Blair.

Target Boys to Break Menstruation Taboos

By Webster Mavhu
An all-male panel assembled to discuss menstrual health on International Menstrual Hygiene Day sparked outrage on social media and a flurry of memes of all-female panels discussing male issues.

Unsung Heroines: Who Cares for the Carers?

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Even before Covid-19, the world was facing a care crisis. The plight of often neglected, under-appreciated, under-protected and poorly equipped ‘frontline’ health personnel working to contain the pandemic has drawn attention to the tip of the care crisis iceberg.

Reproductive Rights of Women and Girls Under Lockdown

Health systems around the world are prioritising health care services and equipment to treat people diagnosed with Covid-19, which means that many procedures deemed to be elective and non-essential are being suspended or simply not provided. Abortion, for instance, has been categorised as a non-essential health service by some States, while others have removed certain restrictions to accessing abortion.

Women are Often an After-Thought in a Humanitarian Crisis

By Priti Shrestha and Navanita Sinha
In an interview*, Bina Pradhan, an independent researcher, focuses on gender, macroeconomics and emerging issues of inequality. She is affiliated with the Federation of Business and Professional Women, Nepal (FBPWN), and has been working on the promotion and advancement of women in enterprise development and trade, post-earthquake community reconstruction, and rebuilding people’s lives and livelihoods with a focus on sustainability.

Kenya’s Adolescent Women Left Behind As More Married Women Access Contraception

By Miriam Gathigah
It was only when 17-year-old Eva Muigai was in her final trimester that her family discovered she was pregnant. Muigai, a form three student who lives with her family in Gachie, Central Kenya, had spent her pregnancy wearing tight bodysuits and loose-fitting clothes that hid her growing baby bump.

Women Taking Charge during COVID-19

By Fairuz Ahmed
As the COVID-19 mayhem carries on in most countries, the role of mothers, daughters, and female caregivers have been affected the most. Besides looking after the household and home schooling children, they are also working on the front lines, actively or passively caring for their respective communities.

Why Reproductive Rights Must Be a Critical Part of Our Arsenal to Fight Pandemics

By Siddharth Chatterjee
Sexual and reproductive health and pandemics might seem to be unrelated topics, but large and dense populations are drivers of the high velocity transmission of COVID-19, and there are lessons to be learned for the future.
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