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“I’ve grown a few years in 26 days”: A teenager’s life during wartime
On 24 February, 11th-grader Viktoria Kravets had a typical day planned: classes at top secondary school Gymnasium Prestige then meeting up with a friend after school. The night before, she had forgotten to set her alarm…
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Midwives ensure life-saving reproductive health care for women returning to Afghanistan
Sexual and reproductive health needs have spiralled for women and girls since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, with restricted access to services and limited freedom of movement. UNFPA has launched a humanitarian…
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“War trauma hunts them all”: Psychosocial support for Ukrainian refugees
On a recent day in the capital, psychologist Dr. Natalia Gandrabur was not where she usually works – a Youth Friendly Health Clinic that is part of a UNFPA-supported network of 41 such clinics across the country…
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Free maternal services are a lifeline to expectant mothers in Yemen
On her way to the health centre to give birth, Hailah almost fell off the back of a borrowed motorbike – twice. A lack of oil has driven up high transportation costs, and the money her husband, Hamid, made in Saudi…
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A 12-hour walk at 7 months pregnant: Escape from the horrors of war in Ukraine
Amid the violence, fear and deepening uncertainty that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 21-year-old Natasha Kuznetsova fled her home in the country’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, which has seen destruction on a…
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More than $250 million needed to sustain humanitarian response for women and girls in Afghanistan
“I had a miscarriage and my two-year-old daughter got sick,” Anisa* recalled after her local health facility stopped providing maternal and newborn health services. “We both needed medical care, but we did not know…
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In a deadly typhoon’s wake, a women-led mobile facility meets sexual and reproductive health needs
A new mobile sexual and reproductive health clinic has been deployed to the devastated Philippines province of Southern Leyte following December’s Typhoon Rai/Odette, the third strongest storm on record to hit the…
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Attending to the sexual and reproductive health needs of refugees from Ukraine
“If I wasn't so scared there, I wouldn’t think of leaving my country,” said Maria Voinska, who fled Odessa when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February. As of 11 March, 310,000 people, including some 278,000…
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In her words: “Above my house, I saw a burning missile.” An expectant mother seeks safety in the Republic of Moldova
Daria Smirnova, 33, left Odessa, Ukraine with her mother and son and arrived in Chișinău, the capital of the Republic of Moldova, approximately 180 kilometres away. Nine months pregnant with another boy, she is due to…
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