POPULATION-ASIA: Gendercide at Apocalyptic Levels – Experts

Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights are painting an apocalyptical vision of the Asian region where 163 million women are ‘missing’ and the sex ratio continues to decline as a result of easy access to modern gender selection techniques.

DEVELOPMENT: Women Make a Seven-Year Pitch

Calls for a renewed commitment to women's human rights are on the rise as the world's top policymakers gather here this week to discuss international funding for development.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Tortured Labour, Stolen Newborns

"Torture with the electric prod when she was close to term induced accelerated labour," says the report "Maternidades Clandestinas" (Motherhood in Clandestine Prisons), which tells the stories of dozens of women illegally imprisoned during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Q&A: &#39Women Need Help to Deliver&#39

The Women Deliver conference held in London last week has reminded a lot of people in the world of healthcare how much more they need to deliver to make pregnancy and childbirth safer for women.

Q&A: “It Was Not Your Typical ‘Complaining’ Environment”

The second IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) heads of state summit took place Wednesday in the South African capital, Pretoria, with the aim of deepening South-South co-operation. But, the gathering hasn't only been about talks between country leaders.

HEALTH: No Woman Should Die Giving Life, Says UNFPA

In this 21st century, when medical science and gender empowerment are rising progressively, "no woman should die giving life", declares Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

HEALTH: Maternal Mortality Shames Superpower U.S.

Despite its enormous wealth and highly advanced technology, the United States lags far behind other industrialised countries - and even some developing ones - in providing adequate health care to women during pregnancy and childbirth.

EUROPE: &#39Aid for Sexual Health Declining&#39

The European Union is "not delivering" on promises to increase aid for contraception and sex education in poor countries, family planning advocates have declared.

HEALTH: The Quiet Scandal of 10 Million Deaths

A global coalition of governments and organisations has launched a new campaign to drastically improve pre- and post-natal healthcare in places like India, which alone accounts for a staggering 25 percent of the world's child deaths and 20 percent of maternal deaths.

POPULATION-PHILIPPINES: Manila Women to Fight Ban on Contraceptives

Lourdes Esplana-Osil has seven children, all born within a space of 12 years. Warned by her doctor of complications from repeated pregnancies, she started using injectable contraceptives provided free at a local government health centre.

HEALTH: UNAIDS Head Puts the Spotlight on Children and Teens

The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is urging action as concerns the transmission of HIV to children through sexual abuse, incest and early teenage sex.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Legalise Therapeutic Abortion, Say NGOs

A proposal by a coalition of civil society groups to make therapeutic abortion legal in the Dominican Republic has prompted heavy pressure on Congress from the Catholic Church.

HEALTH: No Sex Education Please – We’re Indian

Though adolescents are said to be at the centre of the AIDS epidemic and India has the largest number of infections in Asia, this conservative country continues to shy away from incorporating sex education in school curricula.

HEALTH-SRI LANKA: Lessons From Int&#39l AIDS Meet

For Padma, a sociology graduate from a Sri Lankan university, the three-day International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) that ended Thursday was nothing short of an enlightening experience in her life.

BRAZIL: Controversial Bill to Sterilise Younger Women

A draft law to reduce the minimum age for women to undergo voluntary sterilisation in Brazil’s public hospitals from 25 to 18 is vigorously opposed by the government.

HEALTH-ASIA: &#39Tackling HIV/AIDS Goes Beyond Morality&#39

On the second day of the three-day Interfaith Community Forum ahead of the 8th International Congress for AIDS in the Asia-Pacific (ICAAP) here, different religious groups gathered together to share their experiences dealing with HIV and AIDS - once a controversial, taboo issue for many of them.

POLITICS-MALI: Worst Expectations Confounded

As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once remarked, "A week is a long time in politics." By this token, a political landscape can alter even more in a month, recent developments in Mali being a case in point.

BRAZIL: Turning Women’s Rights Into Reality

Women’s right to abortion, and the effective implementation of social policies, especially those directly concerning women, will be key issues at the Second National Conference on Policies for Women, to be held in Brasilia from Friday to Monday.

RIGHTS-MEXICO: 16,000 Victims of Child Sexual Exploitation

The child pornography and commercial sexual exploitation industry enjoys total impunity in the Mexican capital, according to a report by the Mexico City Human Rights Commission.

SIERRA LEONE: A Women&#39s Issue That Women Are Wary of Campaigning About

Female genital mutilation (FGM) can make sex painful, complicate childbirth, lead to urinary tract infections, enable the transmission of HIV - and induce a host of other ills. So, promising to fight this practice should be a winning strategy for someone hoping to be elected to parliament this Saturday in Sierra Leone - where about 90 percent of girls and women undergo FGM, according to rights watchdog Amnesty International.

Q&A: "In Sierra Leone They Just Cut You, And There&#39s Not Much Problem With That"

Certain comments resonate long after they are made, and Shirley Yeama Gbujama's reported threat to "sew up the mouths of those preaching against Bondo" is certainly one of them.