Women's Health

The Challenge of Being a Maasai Woman

By Joan Erakit
The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Tanzania has long been a beacon of traditional culture to many Africans - and for Westerners on safari through Maasai Mara, Samburu or Amboseli, a familiar face.

Skilled Midwives May be the Key to Healthy Babies

By Joan Erakit
The story goes like this: a young mother lies quietly in a dimly lit room having just given birth to her baby. For the next seven days she watches over the child with caution, nursing and swaddling it patiently. Fearful that the infant will not survive past a few days, she refuses to give it a name.

Monetising Human Waste and 101 (Slightly) Crazy Other Ideas

By Stephen Leahy
One, two or more of the 102 newly launched out-of-the box ideas to improve global health could be world-changing breakthroughs.

Older Women in Cuba Take Steps to Improve Quality of Life

By Ivet González
Paediatrician Grisel Navarro says she is "a different kind of retiree," because she still practises her profession, goes out and about and refuses to be "at the beck and call of her family's and everyone else's needs," something that diminishes quality of life for many Cuban women when they retire from work.

U.N. Task Force Purges Stigmas on Sexual Rights

By George Gao
Ishita Chaudhry spent the past 36 hours listening to U.N. delegates discuss population growth and development. She noticed that on “controversial” topics, such as sexual and reproductive rights, young people’s voices often get lost.

Their Missing Daughters

By Ranjita Biswas
It is as if they have given up hope of ever seeing their girls again. They are an Adivasi family from a remote village in Assam state in India, nestled in the Himalayan foothills. The picturesque surroundings belie the hollowness they feel within.

Educating Mothers to End South Africa’s Newborn Deaths

By Stanley Karombo
A young mother – who only wants to be identified as Karren – beamed as she nursed her newborn baby at the University of Witwatersrand’s Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, in Hillbrow, South Africa. 

Q&A: Ecuador Guarantees Right to Free Emergency Contraception

By Leisa Sánchez
The government of Ecuador is determined to curb the growing number of teen pregnancies, and has begun to knock down barriers that stand in the way of the right to a responsible sexual and reproductive life.

U.S. Global Health Cuts Threaten Gains on Lethal Diseases

By Katelyn Fossett
A U.S.-based civil society coalition is calling on Congress and President Barack Obama’s administration to keep spending on global health aid at current levels, warning that recent budget cuts risk a dangerous backslide in health and development gains achieved over the past three decades.

Water Shortage Hits Pacific Women

By Catherine Wilson
The Solomon Islands, a developing island nation in the south-west Pacific Islands, has one of the highest urbanisation rates in the region, and the basic service infrastructure is struggling to cater for the influx of people from the provinces to the capital, Honiara. Thirty-five percent of the city’s population, who live in informal settlements, are facing the health consequences of a dire shortage of clean water and sanitation.

BOOKS: The Legacy of Nafis Sadik, Champion of Choice

By Joan Erakit
Once dubbed "the most powerful woman in the world" by the London Times, Nafis Sadik learned at an early age that persistence leads to opportunities for change - and backlash from the Pope.

Taliban Victims Seek Support

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
People disabled through bomb and suicide attacks by the Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the nearby Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are seeking support for themselves, and demanding strict action against the Taliban.

Digging Deep for New Conflict

By Pierre Klochendler
If Herod the Great was a controversial figure of his time, 2,000 years on the controversy isn’t about his legacy; it’s about who holds the rights to excavate and preserve his artefacts.

‘Every Day Is a Fukushima Memorial’

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
Japan prepares to mark the second anniversary of the Mar. 11 triple disaster - an earthquake, tsunami and a critical nuclear reactor accident - with much soul searching across the country.

Argentina to Legalise Surrogate Motherhood

By Marcela Valente
Argentina is set to become the first country in Latin America to legalise surrogate motherhood as an option for heterosexual and homosexual couples or single people who cannot conceive but want to have a child who is biologically their own.

Gaza Women Suffer on ‘Their’ Day

By Eva Bartlett
“In Gaza we don't lead normal lives, we just cope, and adapt to our abnormal lives under siege and occupation,” says Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician and a long-time human rights and women's rights activist in the Gaza Strip. On International Women's Day, when many of the world's women are fighting for workplace equality and an end to domestic violence, Farra and the majority of Gaza's women fight for the most basic of rights.

U.S. Cuts to Global Health Budget “Mass-scale Malpractice”

By Carey L. Biron
Public health workers, activists and policymakers are stepping up a last-minute campaign to highlight the global health impact of historic, sweeping cuts to the U.S. federal budget due to go into effect Friday if Congress doesn’t act.

Major Audit Urges Devolution of U.S. AIDS Programme

By Carey L. Biron
A major audit of the United States’ flagship global anti-HIV/AIDS programme, prepared for the U.S. Congress, notes “remarkable progress” over the past decade. However, it is also warning of insufficient monitoring and urging a stepped-up process of handing over greater control to partner countries.

Investing in Kids Isn’t Rocket Science

By Marzieh Goudarzi
The Millennium Development Goals challenged the world to cut extreme poverty in half, dramatically reduce child mortality, and make primary education universal, but Jody Heymann and Kristen McNeill say the world can do more.

Q&A: FGM Is About Culture, Not Religion

By Marzieh Goudarzi
The fight against female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) continues to gain traction around the world.

Kenyan Men Turning the Tide Against FGM

By Miriam Gathigah
For the Samburu community in northern Kenya it was bad enough that Julius Lekupe had not sired a son - it was even worse that his eldest daughter refused to be “cut”.
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