Updates

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

In many countries around the world, gender-based violence is carried out through small vials of clear liquid—sulfuric acid. “Acid attacks” are particularly prevalent in South-East and South Asia, and result in excruciating pain, burns, and often fatal complications. In Bangladesh, Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF)’s ongoing advocacy efforts have led to the passing of two laws aimed at preventing the practice, and the establishment of government-NGO partnerships to accelerate further progress.  This past year, they have been campaigning in support of the “Comprehensive Acid and Burn Crime Bill”, which would strengthen existing legislation criminalizing acid violence. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Catapult

In many parts of the world, women living with HIV face a high risk of falling into poverty: Stigma and fears about worker productivity can make it particularly difficult for women to find work and earn a livelihood. Sanmitra Trust, a non-governmental organization in Mumbai, India, is working to break these barriers and help women living with HIV, sex workers, and other marginalized women build better futures for themselves and their families. In addition to providing health, welfare and legal services, Sanmitra Trust (a Catapult and Global Fund for Women partner) helps women living with HIV develop financial strength by learning job and business skills and accessing financial services like bank accounts and loans. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

Across the world, 510 million women and girls lack access to proper nutrition. In the Philippines, 5 million adults were found to be underweight in 2010. To fight malnutrition in the Philippines, nonprofit organization Roots of Health introduced the Vertical Gardening project to help women grow their own plants to feed their family and community. After the project’s implementation in May 2010, 101 vertical gardens have been installed in the Pulang Lupa community to-date. Read more...

By: Joanna Hoffman, Women Deliver

Information Technology, or IT, has dramatically transformed how we communicate, learn and work around the globe. Yet the opportunities arising from this new digital world still face significant social and cultural barriers, particularly gender discrimination. Although half of Africa’s workforce is female, women only make up 15% of workers in the technology field. Through an innovative, multi-faceted approach, the AkiraChix training program in Kenya has aimed to turn this trend around, bringing IT training and job opportunities to 200 women so far. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

In Haiti, pregnancy and childbirth are often fatal; Haiti has the highest maternal, under-5 and infant mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. Many local civil society organizations have joined the efforts of international and government agencies to gradually improve health conditions, one healthy delivery at a time. One such organization is Haiti Village Health (HVH). In the past year, this organization has launched a pre- and postnatal program which has provided healthcare to over 100 women. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Catapult

The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL)—an award-winning civil society group committed to improving Afghanistan’s future— is developing Afghanistan’s next cadre of innovative educators, one teacher at a time. Training teachers is a critical solution for helping increase the capacity of one of the weakest education systems in the world. A high illiteracy rate and resistance against educating girls serve as modern-day reminders of Afghanistan’s dark past. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

Today, at least 222 million women worldwide have an unmet need for modern contraceptives.  Family planning is a proven life-saving solution with the power to avert 70% of maternal deaths, yet many people around the world do not have access to the contraceptive information and services they need.  This past year in Jordan, the USAID-SHOPS national media campaign was introduced to increase oral contraceptive use among women. The campaign has already seen promising results—there has been a 33% country-wide increase  in oral contraceptive pill sales. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

When many of us envision the life of a girl, we picture her poring over her notebooks and spending time with friends. Yet for trafficked young women, these images are replaced by the reality of long trips from home to an unknown village for the promise of a good job, followed by years of physical and sexual abuse. Human trafficking is the third largest crime industry in the world after drug and arms trafficking. Globally, about 2.5 million people are in forced labor at any given time, with the majority—1.4 million—working in Asian countries. Trafficking is especially rampant in Cambodia—over 2,000 victims were trafficked into the country in 2005. Fortunately, there are NGOs working to make a difference. Last year, the Coalition to Address Sexual Exploitation of Children in Cambodia (COSECAM) released a ten-year report highlighting successful efforts to prevent trafficking and help survivors rebuild their lives. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

In a Celebrate Solutions column earlier this month, we saw how financial constraints can lead menstruating women to resort to unsanitary alternatives instead of disposable pads in India and other developing countries. Unfortunately, monetary restrictions are not the only obstacles preventing women from maintaining proper menstrual hygiene. Lack of access to sanitary facilities prevents girls and women around the world from reaching their potential in terms of health, education, productivity and self-empowerment. This past year, BRAC, a non-profit organization based in Bangladesh, celebrated tremendous progress made in incorporating menstrual hygiene management into its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program. Read more...

By: Joanna Hoffman, Women Deliver

This Thursday, we celebrate the first ever International Day of the Girl, a global call to action to advocate for girls’ rights. In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish this day to raise awareness on the issues girls face every day, promote girls’ rights, and highlight gender inequality. Girls Not Brides and its members in more than 30 countries are marking this day with action. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

Imagine having to live in a cow-shed without any change of clothes for a week every month. Or, imagine being banished to a dark, secluded corner of your house because you are considered to be “cursed”. Seems unrealistic and utterly wrong, right? It did to me. But this is the reality of girls and women in many parts of the world where any mention of menstruation is still taboo. In India, Jayaashree Industries is working to combat that. Read more...

By Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

Women operate the majority of small farms and contribute more than 75% of all agricultural work worldwide, yet few of them own the land they cultivate and depend upon to feed their families. Secure land and property rights support economic growth, reduce poverty and provide opportunities for empowerment. Land ownership also provides women with economic access to market institutions and social access to non-market institutions, such as household and community relations. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

Gender-based violence (GBV) contributes significantly to HIV prevalence in the world, specifically in HIV endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa. SASA!, a program run by Raising Voices, is a community mobilization program based in Uganda that works to raise community awareness of GBV, and in turn reduce rates of HIV. Read more...

By: Yousra Yusuf, Women Deliver

Global maternal mortality rates may be on the decline, but mothers in India continue to die from preventable causes at alarming rates. In 2010, 56,000 deaths were reported throughout the country, with one in every 140 women dying from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. Through a conditional cash transfer program, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), the Indian government is working to ensure that no woman dies while giving life. Read more...

By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

Maternal health and mental health are inextricably linked – pregnant and postnatal women often suffer from common mental disorders like anxiety, depression, and other issues. But, all too often, these disorders go undiagnosed and untreated. Maternal suicide is the leading cause of death in the perinatal period, and there is a growing body of evidence to support the need for maternal mental health support in low- and middle-income countries.

In South Africa, the Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP), ongoing since July 2008, created an intervention that integrates mental health care services with primary care services. Read more...

By: Smita Gaith, Women Deliver

In 1998, Russia’s federal government withdrew funding for national family planning programs, leaving the task to municipal and regional governments. In response, USAID and John Snow Inc. stepped in to fund the Women and Infants’ Health [pdf] (WIN) pilot project from 1999 to 2003, followed by the scale-up phase called Maternal and Child Health Initiative (MCHI) from 2003 to 2006. Read more...

By: Harshi Hettige, Women Deliver

Over 600 Zambian girls have been empowered to stand up against violence as a result of the Tisunge Ana Athu Akazi (Lets Protect Our Girl Children) Coalition (TAAAC). The Coalition took action in a country where one-third of girls surveyed reported that they knew of girls who had been sexually harassed by a teacher, and half reported knowing girls who had been exploited by a family member.

Led by Equality Now and with a grant from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, TAAAC unites Zambian organizations to take action against gender-based violence. Read more...

By: Harshi Hettige, Women Deliver

“I hate early marriage. I was married at an early age and my in-laws forced me to sleep with my husband and he made me suffer all night. After that, whenever it starts to get dark, I get worried, thinking that it will be like that. This is what I hate most.”
— 11-year old girl from Amhara region, Ethiopia. Married at age 5, lost her virginity at age 9.

The Berhane Hewan (“Light for Eve” in Amharic) project was established to help girls like this one by providing best practices to protect them from early marriage and supporting those who are already married. Read more...

By: Harshi Hettige, Women Deliver

Iran’s family planning program has been lauded as an ‘Iranian Miracle’ and modeled around the world, including here in the US. It holds the record for the largest and fastest decline in fertility ever. The total fertility rate (TFR) dropped from 6 children per woman in the mid-1980s to 2.1 children per woman in 2000. This greatly exceeded expectations; the TFR in 2000 was less than half of what had been planned for 2011. "It confounded all conventional wisdom that it could happen in one of the world's few Islamic republics," said Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, a demographer at the University of Tehran. Read more...