Women's Health

U.S.: Healthcare Should Include Abortion Access, Women Say

By Armin Rosen
Last fall, the push to reform healthcare in the United States was all but hijacked by one of the country's most passionate recurring cultural debates.

MEXICO: Ecological Smoke from Fuel Efficient Stoves

By Emilio Godoy
The lives of many rural women and children in Mexico are changing, and the country's high deforestation rate could be reduced, as inexpensive fuel-efficient cook stoves are being distributed by non-governmental organisations with corporate and government support.

RIGHTS-BURMA: For Sex Workers, A Life of Risks

By IPS Correspondents
When Aye Aye (not her real name) leaves her youngest son at home each night, she tells him that she has to work selling snacks. But what Aye actually sells is sex so that her 12-year-old son, a Grade 7 student, can finish his education.

THAILAND: Temple Grounds A Venue for Curbing Domestic Violence

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
When the conversation here shifts to domestic violence, even the way a woman got pregnant becomes an issue of concern, particularly if the price for bearing a child means getting infected with HIV.
Primary health care in Uganda is increasingly entrusted to community-based workers: is the strategy safe? Credit: Charles Akena/IRIN

EAST AFRICA: Improving Local Access to Family Planning

By Isaiah Esipisu
A severe shortage of highly-trained medical personnel is one of the many challenges to providing health care at a local level across Africa. Task shifting - permitting less-specialised people to carry out certain functions - is one proposal to over come this, but it is meeting resistance.
Veena Panudej at her workplace Credit: Marwaan Macan-Markar/IPS

THAILAND: Women with HIV Break Silence, Confront Stigma

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Veena Panudej makes a living in the night like so many other women and men in this quiet eastern corner of Thailand. They work under the light of the stars in rubber estates spread beyond this city close to the Cambodian border.

POLITICS-PHILIPPINES: Rice and Condom on the Election Agenda

By Diana Mendoza
Rice and condoms do not usually land on the same list of household basics in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, but extremely poor couples here with huge families would choose rice if given the two options.

EUROPE: Fight Female Mutilation Harder Activists Urge EU

By Pavol Stracansky
With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure.

RIGHTS: Nicaragua Refuses to Discuss Therapeutic Abortion

By José Adán Silva
Nicaragua slammed the door on any possible debate on the restitution of therapeutic abortion - performed to save the life of the pregnant woman - despite demands that it do so voiced during a United Nations review of human rights in the country.

PAKISTAN: Community Midwives Gain Recognition But Concerns Remain

By Zofeen Ebrahim
As Kanwal Gul, 25, lay on the delivery table a year ago, preparing to give birth to her first child, she made sure the traditional birth attendant (TBA) assisting her knew exactly what to do. Put on the gloves, she instructed her.
Many Ugandan parents are still too afraid to test their children for HIV. Credit: Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi/IPS

UGANDA: Early Diagnosis of HIV Still Elusive

By IPS Correspondents
HIV-positive Justine Kirumira* is a mother torn between doing what is right for her daughters and her own fear of HIV/AIDS. She suspects that her eight and 12-year-old daughters may also have the virus. But she may never know the truth of their status because she refuses have them tested.
An elderly woman in a wheelchair carries away a bottle of water distributed by UN Brazilian peacekeepers. Credit: UN Photo/Marco Dormino

HAITI: Displaced Women Face Double Jeopardy

By IPS Correspondents
Women's rights and development activists working in Haiti say that greater attention must be paid to the immediate needs of women and girls, as well as their role in the long-term reconstruction of the devastated country.
Thousands of young women risk their health procuring abortions each year: will a new constitution entrench restrictive laws on termination? Credit: Ann Weru/IRIN

KENYA: Victory for Anti-Abortion Lobby

By Susan Anyangu-Amu
The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya's draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded.
A "staunchly patriarchal society" and cultural mores can take a serious toll on women's mental health. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

PAKISTAN: Mental Illness among Women: Gender-Driven?

By Zofeen Ebrahim
No sooner does a visitor step into the facility than a surreal scene unfolds: The sound of laughter, the sight of ready smiles and vigorous, pumping handshakes mix with the acrid odor of an unwashed human body and the unbearable stench of neglect that in turn combines with the heavy smell of medicine.

BURMA: Ethnic Women Expose Opium Fields in Junta Strongholds

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.
Reflecting on maternity rights and risks. Credit: Carolina Camps/IPS

ARGENTINA: Slow Progress in Cutting Maternal Deaths

By Marcela Valente
Some 300 women a year die in Argentina of complications during pregnancy, childbirth or the postpartum period, from largely preventable causes. Many of the deaths result from unsafe abortions.
A mother visits a reproductive health clinic in Ghana. Credit: Elana Roth/NYU Livewire

GHANA: Quietly Extending Options to Women

By Elana Roth
Juliana Kweais has a small scar on her bottom lip, from the first time she witnessed an abortion. The sharp blow to her mouth was delivered by her grandmother, after the then-13-year-old Kweais had asked why her auntie had given "birth" to a bloody sack.
Thousands of young women risk their health procuring abortions each year: will a new constitution entrench restrictive laws on termination? Credit: Julius Mwelu/IRIN

KENYA: Clash Over Abortion Rights in New Constitution

By Susan Anyangu-Amu
A harmonised draft constitution has now been handed over to Kenya's Parliamentary Select Committee. Influential Christian leaders are warning that the question of abortion could derail the constitutional review process.
A bottom-up approach to energy shortages is swapping wasteful stoves like this for better designs, saving both money and the environment. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

TANZANIA: Addressing Energy Crisis Through Alternatives and Efficiency at Household Level

By IPS Correspondents
Tanzania's electricity grid is fed by a mixture of natural gas, diesel and hydropower; however, over the past few years the country has experienced severe blackouts and power rationing in urban areas due to drought and subsequent low-water levels.

RIGHTS-INDIA: Hi-Tech Beats Sex Selection Ban

By Ranjit Devraj
When a magistrate in the western port city of Mumbai convicted two doctors in November for advertising sex selection services, it showed determination to enforce laws aimed at stopping gender determination tests linked to the mass abortion of female foetuses.

RIGHTS: U.N. Still to Accredit Its First U.S. LGBT Group

By IPS Correspondents
Sixty-one years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sexual orientation and gender identity still pose a threat to the dignity and sovereignty of individuals around the world.
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