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In Myanmar, family planning empowers women to take charge of their health, futures
As Moe Moe Khaing, 30, listened to her doctor discuss family planning, she automatically reflected on the pressures building at home: Rent had been due a week ago, and her 3-year-old son had been sick for three straight…
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Health facilities devastated in Hurricane Matthew: “I couldn’t have left the women there to die”
The night Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti, Marie-Lyrette Casimir, 46, was the only nurse-midwife on duty at the maternity unit of St. Antoine Hospital in Jérémie. It would be the only building at the hospital not reduced…
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Giving girls a voice in Zika-affected communities
"I heard at school that Zika is sexually transmitted, and my mother has also mentioned it," Maria Eduarda told her friends, Barbara and Jocielly, all 14, after they had exited a reproductive health seminar.
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The power of 10: Ten astonishing facts about 10-year-old girls
The world’s future will be determined by the fate of its 10-year-old girls. Age 10 is the beginning of adolescence, when girls start to see possibilities expanding – or contracting. As these girls approach puberty, they…
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For busy garment workers in Lesotho, health care comes on wheels
When factory worker ’Mantina Mphohle, 31, was hit by a car recently, she took two days of sick leave. That time off was unpaid. “You can imagine how disappointed I was when I realized my salary had been cut for the two…
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Stunning plunge in maternal deaths recorded in Maldives
The Maldives has seen a stunning 90 per cent plunge in its maternal death rate over the last 25 years, the largest such drop in the world over this time period, according to joint United Nations estimates.
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“What our daughter has done is a miracle” – the power of one adolescent girl
Three years ago, Sibongile Majaura was on the cusp of dropping out of school, a misfortune all too familiar to girls in Zimbabwe. But she has defied the odds.
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Fifty years after a terrible childbirth injury, Kenyan woman gets a new lease on life
Decades ago, Jumwa Kabibu Kai was pregnant with her second child in the small village of Kidutani, Kenya. The area was poor and isolated – her nearest neighbour was 3 kilometres away – and there was no easy access to a…
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New rules to help end child marriage in Cameroon
“I was forced into marriage by my father at the age of 14,” Faouzia Yaya, now 17, told UNFPA. “My father insisted, even knowing I did not want it. I even ran away to my uncle’s place, but he still found me.”
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