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Monday, June 29, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Women's Health
DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis May Get Worse Before it Gets Better
The spreading food crisis - triggered primarily by rising prices, declining outputs and growing scarcities worldwide - is threatening to impact heavily on the most vulnerable in society: women and children.
HEALTH-TANZANIA: A Hazardous Route to the Cradle
Tatu Shabani Tumbo's first born was diagnosed with strength-sapping anaemia, and died a toddler. Doctors had no medical explanation for the sudden death of her second child at age one. She then tried to get pregnant a third time, initially without success.
CHILE: Thousands Protest Ban on "Morning-After" Pill
More than 15,000 people marched in the Chilean capital Tuesday evening to protest a Constitutional Court ruling that banned the free distribution of the "morning-after" pill by the public health system.BRAZIL: The Body Beautiful – Women’s Ladder to Success
Brazilians, especially women, are among the global leaders in taking meticulous care of their bodies and exhibiting them to advantage. This is a significant factor in climbing social and economic ladders, establishing identities and competing successfully in markets, from employment to romance.DEVELOPMENT: Family Planning Gets Mere Sliver of Aid Pie
The United Nations warns that a sharp decline in international funding for reproductive health is threatening global efforts to reduce poverty, improve health and empower women worldwide.UGANDA: “God Should Be So Kind That I Can Have Contraceptives”
For many of Africa's women, getting access to family planning services is difficult at the best of times. When war intervenes they can find themselves without any services at all, even as they become more vulnerable to sexual violence - the situation in northern Uganda being a case in point.DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Poverty Goals Face New Threats
The U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed primarily at reducing poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy, are being undermined by a rash of new problems threatening to cripple the ongoing efforts by developing nations to reach their targets by 2015.CUBA: Women Talk to Women about HIV/AIDS Prevention
Prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, the AIDS virus, has become the centre of the lives of a small group of women in the province of Pinar del Río, in the west of Cuba.RIGHTS: EU 'Half-Hearted' in Backing Gender Equality
The European Union's efforts to promote gender equality in poor countries have been dubbed "half-hearted" by the bloc's only directly elected institution.
MIDEAST: No Day Is a Woman's Day in Gaza
Mahasen Darduna suffers in ways the world recognises; her suffering comes at the hands of the Israelis. But there are many Palestinian women whose suffering the world does not see, because their hell is inflicted on them by Palestinians.WOMEN’S DAY-ITALY: Right to Abortion Being Sought Again
Women have launched a renewed campaign in Italy against a move to overturn the right to abortion.RIGHTS: U.N. Takes Lead on Ending Gender Violence
The United Nations has launched a multi-year global campaign to intensify its efforts to help eliminate violence against women, which has long remained hidden in a "culture of silence".RIGHTS: U.N. Budgeting Bypasses Women
When the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) holds a two-week session beginning next Monday, one of the lingering issues high on the agenda will be the continued under-funding of women’s activities at the United Nations.RIGHTS: U.N. Sees Progress in Ending Female Genital Mutilation
After nearly 30 years of intense campaigning against female genital mutilation (FGM), the United Nations says that several countries, including Canada, Belgium, Spain and Italy, have passed legislation criminalising the practice, prevalent mostly among immigrant communities.RIGHTS-AFRICA: No Sex, Please – You're HIV-Positive
HIV/AIDS policies and programmes disregard the sexual needs of people living with the virus, claim a number of HIV-positive women who attended the third Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights - held this week in Nigeria.RIGHTS: Ignoring Girls' Welfare Carries High Price
Investing in young women and girls in developing regions must be a top priority for governments, multilateral agencies and the private sector, say the authors of a report released here this week.
Q&A: ‘Half Our Job Is Done If We Have The Imams On Our Side’
At 31, Dr Donya Aziz, was the youngest legislator to join the previous Pakistan Muslim League (Q) government. Busy running for the February elections, Aziz wants to get back into the assembly and resume the work she had to leave off when President Pervez Musharraf clamped emergency rule on Nov. 3, 2007 and dissolved the house.
HEALTH-US: Abortion Rights Groups Say Legal Fights Loom
The 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to abortion - is being observed this week amid concerns over threats to erode or eliminate a woman's reproductive rights.
COLOMBIA: Black Communities Organise in Country’s Poorest Region
During the "high season" of popular festivals in Colombia’s Chocó region, "pregnant girls as young as 13 start flowing in," says a nursing assistant in the obstetrics department at the hospital of the provincial capital, Quibdó.HEALTH-SPAIN: Abortion – Education not Repression, Say Activists
Abortion clinics in Spain went on a five-day strike Tuesday to protest arrests of clinic personnel in Barcelona, the capital of the northeastern region of Catalonia.RIGHTS-US: Styling Hair, and Watching for that Telltale Bruise
When Maria, who asked that her full name not be used, began working as a New York City-area hair stylist almost 26 years ago, she had a client named "Betty" who would often show up to her appointments with serious-looking injuries.« 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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