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Monday, June 29, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Women's Health
HEALTH-AFRICA: Family Planning: Expand Role For Private Sector
Dwindling donor support in the face of rising contraceptive demand, combined with diminishing government budgets could make already widespread shortfalls in the provision of contraceptives worse. African reproductive health experts are suggesting that the private sector could be the key to filling the gap.
CULTURE: Young Women in Chat Rooms Beware
Internet and mobile phones have spawned a new kind of marriage in the Gulf.HEALTH-AFRICA: HIV Laws Do More Harm Than Good
In Sierra Leone, a mother who transmits HIV to her child can be fined, jailed for up to seven years, or both. Human Rights Watch reports that in 2008, several men were arrested in Egypt simply for being HIV positive. New legislation is currently being discussed in Angola that could lead to a three to ten year jail sentence for those who knowingly pass on HIV.
HEALTH-INDIA: High Morbidity Mars Kerala Women’s Progress
While Kerala, in southwest India, enjoys enviable indices when it comes to health and human development, the state seems unable to shake off high chronic morbidity rates among its women.NICARAGUA: Therapeutic Abortion Ban a "Disgrace" Says Rights Group
"What happened to me shattered my dreams, my hopes – I wanted to be someone who worked outside the home but I spend all day at home looking after the baby...I can’t even sleep and I feel very unsafe, many of my days are a nightmare, it’s very hard to carry on and I feel very sad and very tired," said "M", who was raped at age 17 by a relative.SOUTH AFRICA: Fight Sexism to Help Young Mothers
"My mother was surprised that my breasts were getting bigger, and told me to go to the clinic to take a pregnancy test. The nurses told me I was pregnant and so I cried. I cried because I thought I was too young to have a baby and I thought I wouldn't manage."
HEALTH-MADAGASCAR: Eight Women Die During Delivery Each Day
Eight Malagasy women die per day while giving birth, either due to complications during the pregancny or during delivery, according to a recently-published national Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).
Q&A: Teens Wrongly Excluded From Family Planning
Nafissatou Diop has worked for decades on issues of reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and development in West Africa, including designing and implementing many studies and programmes.HEALTH: Gender Finally Moving to Forefront of AIDS Fight
With women now comprising 61 percent of all people infected with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, international donors, governments and advocacy organisations are looking more closely at the connections between HIV/AIDS and gender inequality.ECONOMY: Zimbabwe Can’t Repay Loans; Insisting on "Debt Strategy"
The Zimbabwean coalition government cannot afford to repay debts incurred when President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF was ruling on its own and will not repay those debts.
AFRICA: Maternal Mortality, A Human Rights Catastrophe
The right to the highest attainable standard of health: not the most fashionable of human rights, but the limits on people's enjoyment of their right to health often coincide with continuing inequalities behind claims of economic growth or political reform.
HEALTH-SENEGAL: Fistula Sufferers Left To Their Fate
In Senegal's southern region, 58 percent of deliveries take place at home without any medical assistance, according to state reproductive health officials in Kolda, a town 425 km from the capital, Dakar. Women in the region suffer from exceptionally high rates of fistula.
CHILE: When Being a Woman is a “Health Risk”
As a woman of childbearing age, "I pay more than double what a man my age pays for the same health plan," 27-year-old Carolina Leyton told IPS.HUMAN RIGHTS-SLOVAKIA: Barriers Go Up For Abortion
Rights groups in Slovakia have attacked new abortion legislation they say not only breaches women's rights to privacy and regulations on medical confidentiality but could force some women into undergoing risky, illegal abortions.RIGHTS-NAMIBIA: 'Cut, Cut Again and Now Tie Tightly'
Anna Shikongo* wanted many more children, but five-month old Johannes, perched on her lap, will forever be her lastborn. She was sterilised by doctors at a government hospital. Now she is ready to take the government to court.HEALTH-BRAZIL: Birth Centres vs. Hospitals
The recent closure of a birth centre, which offered a more "human" touch with its focus on natural childbirth, in this Brazilian city revived the controversy over such practices, which have the backing of the Health Ministry but are opposed by the medical associations.RIGHTS: Sexual Violence in War Hauled Out of the Shadows
On Jun. 19, 2008, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1820, expressly addressing the problems of sexual violence in conflict situations. One year later, three experts in the field gathered to speak at the United States Institute of Peace to evaluate the implementation of 1820 and consider how it might better prevent this widespread crime.DEVELOPMENT: Global Campaign to Salvage U.N.’s Health Goals
The global economic crisis, which has pushed millions more into extreme poverty, is threatening to have a devastating impact on the health of women and children.
JAMAICA: For an Abortion Law That Reaches the Poor
When a Jamaican women’s group Sistren realised the voices of poor women were missing in a national debate on abortion rights, they boldly staged a play before parliamentarians reviewing a draft law that seeks to clarify when abortion can be deemed legal.LATIN AMERICA: “Sexuality Is an Essential Part of Humanity”
In an effort to promote the free enjoyment of human sexuality, separate from reproduction, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) launched the world's first declaration of sexual rights in the Argentine capital on Wednesday.RIGHTS: Honour Pledges on Reproductive Health
In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) proposed a groundbreaking shift in the approach to reproductive health: women's reproductive capacity was to be transformed from an object of population control to a matter of women's empowerment to exercise personal autonomy.« Previous Page — Next Page »
Worldwide, women’s health is a serious issue. The result of a wide diversity of factors, most notably insufficient access to education, women’s health issues must be addressed. Without access to proper schooling, many girls grow up without the necessary understanding of reproductive health. Due to this, reproductive issues and sexually transmitted infections plague women in developing countries. Women struggle to battle infections such as HIV. The lack of relevant services, coupled with the lack of women’s rights pertaining to their own health, are some of the serious issues that these stories seek to explain.
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