Women's Health

NGO Pledges $500 Million Towards Sustainable Development Goals

By Valentina Ieri
CMMB -Healthier Lives Worldwide– a leading international nonprofit health non-governmental organisation (NGO) – has pledged 500 million dollars to help implement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– with a specific focus on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health.

Women at the Helm

By Abbas Nasir
If a string of recent events have sparked a bit of optimism among the observers of the country`s politics and students of its rather tragic history it is indeed a welcome development.

Alcohol Harm a Gender Empowerment Issue

By Kristina Sperkova
International Women’s Day is a chance to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world – often against great odds and all too often remaining invisible. But women and girls worldwide are change makers and leaders for a better world. Role models are many.

A Different Honour

By Bina Shah
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy`s record second win at the Oscars for her short document ary A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness is proof that lightning can actually strike twice. Hardly four years ago, Chinoy was standing at the same stage in Los Angeles, accepting an Oscar for her documentary Saving Face, about Pakistani victims of acid attacks. Chinoy`s current Oscar winner examines a no less painful subject, honour killings in Pakistan.

Of the Same Ilk

By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
IT has been almost two weeks since the beginning of a protest movement of students, teachers and the wider democratic community in and around Delhi`s famed Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) that represents arguably the biggest challenge that Narendra Modi`s BJP government has faced since coming to power. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we in this country have scarcely paid attention to the whole af fair, even though it tells us much about India, its politics, and, indeed, just how similar our two countries are.

Dealing with Security Threats

By I.A. Rehman
The Lahore Literary Festival has ended in a blaze of success. The uncertainty about its being held at all and the doubts about the people`s capacity to defy fear and much else made the event all the more enjoyable. But the issues regarding the ways of dealing with security threats that it gave rise to still need to be seriously addressed.

The Law of Forgiveness

By Zahid Hussain
More than 1,000 women are killed in the name of honourin this country every year, according to official figures. But the actual numbers are believed to be much higher. Saba Qaiser, 19, would have been one of them had she not miraculously survived drowning in a river after having been shot in the head. Unsurprisingly, those who tried to finish her off were none other than her own relatives her father and uncle as happens in most such cases of `honour`crime.

Hopes and `Honour` Killings

By Rafia Zakaria
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently watched A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obald Chinoy`s Oscar-nominated documentary about `honour` killings. In a statement following the screening, he told Ms Chinoy and his audience that there is no `honour` in murder.

Sterilisation of HIV-Positive Women

By Wambi Michael
Mayimuna Monica* has been living with HIV for over 10 years and wants to have a baby. But she can’t because her uterus was removed against her will at a government hospital where she had gone to deliver her last child now aged eight. “My uterus was removed in 2007. When I got pregnant and went for medical check-up, the doctor asked me why I was pregnant. I told him I want to have a third child. The doctor said, you people living with HIV at times annoy us because you understand your situation but you come to disturb us.” Mayimuna narrates.

Gang-Raped and Nowhere to Turn

By Agnes Odhiambo
Owuor P.’s 16-year-old sister Nekesa tried and tried to get an abortion after she was gang-raped and found herself pregnant during Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007-8. “We are not sure how many raped her,” Owuor told me. “She told us that she saw three men rape her and then she lost consciousness. She was quiet most of the time after the rape.” In desperation after the birth of the child, she killed herself. The baby survived, and today Owuor is raising the child, who has a serious mental health condition, and is still grieving for his sister.

Family Planning in India is Still Deeply Sexist

By Neeta Lal
The tragic death of 12 women after a state-run mass sterilisation campaign in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh went horribly wrong in 2014 made global headlines. The episode saw about 80 women "herded like cattle" into makeshift camps without being properly examined before the laparoscopic tubectomies that snuffed out their lives. In another incident in 2013, police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar arrested three men after they performed a botched sterilisation surgery without anaesthesia on 53 women over two hours in a field.

Microcephaly Revives Battle for Legal Abortion in Brazil

By Mario Osava
The Zika virus epidemic and a rise in the number of cases of microcephaly in newborns have revived the debate on legalising abortion in Brazil. However, the timing is difficult as conservative and religious groups are growing in strength, especially in parliament.

Combating HIV among Teens

By Miriam Gathigah and Jeffrey Moyo
Keziah Juma is coming to terms with her shattered life at the shanty she shares with her family in Kenya’s sprawling Kibera slum where friends and relatives are gathered for her son’s funeral arrangements. While attending an antenatal clinic, Juma who is only 16 years discovered that she had been infected with HIV. “I went into shock and stopped going to the clinic, that is why they could not save my baby and I have been bed-ridden since giving birth two months ago,” she told IPS.

The State We’re In: Ending Sexism in Nationality Laws

By Antonia Kirkland
Everyone has the right to be born with a nationality – safe, fearless and free – and secure in their human right to equally transfer, acquire, change or retain it. There is no reason why over 50 countries should still have sexist nationality and citizenship laws, which largely discriminate against women, potentially putting them and their families in danger and denying them the rights, benefits and services that everyone should enjoy.

Mother-to-Child AIDS Transmission Dealt a Blow in Zimbabwe

By Jeffrey Moyo
With the battle to combat HIV/AIDS intensifying in Zimbabwe, the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission initiative (PMTCT) has increasingly become a success weapon in the war on transmission of the once dreaded disease to the country’s unborn babies, despite some mothers testing positive for the disease.

Opinion: Ending Child Marriage – What Difference Can a Summit Make?

By Samuel Musyoki
The long-awaited African Girls’ Summit on Ending Child Marriage is here.

Open Defecation to End by 2025, Vows UN Chief, Marking World Toilet Day

By Thalif Deen
The state of the world’s toilets reveals the good, the bad and the ugly – but not necessarily in that order.

Opinion: From Despair to Hope – Fulfilling a Promise to Mothers and Children in Mandera County

By Ruth Kagia and Siddharth Chatterjee
Mandera in northeastern Kenya, has often been described as “the worst place on earth to give birth.” Mandera’s maternal mortality ratio stands at 3,795 deaths per 100,000 live births, almost double that of wartime Sierra Leone at 2,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Opinion: Integrating Water, Sanitation and Health are Key to the Promise of the UN Global Goals

By H.R.H. Princess Sarah Zeid
The 193 member states of the United Nations have adopted an ambitious 15-year sustainable development agenda, the 2030 Global Goals.

Kenya: Transforming Mandera County’s Deadly Reputation for Maternal Health

By Siddharth Chatterjee
For many women in Mandera County – a hard to reach, insecure and arid part of North Eastern Kenya – the story of life from childhood to adulthood is one about sheer pain and struggle for survival.

Youngster Uses Technology to Fight Teen Pregnancy in Honduran Village

By Thelma Mejía
Four years ago, Cinthia Padilla, who is now 16, learned how to use a computer in order to teach children, adolescents and adults in this isolated fishing village in northern Honduras how to use technology to better their lives.
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