9,000 free condom vending machines set up in Shanghai
Shanghai residents, including students and migrant workers, will now be provided free condoms through more than 9,000 vending machines to be set up across this business capital of China. Condom vending machines will be put up in dormitory buildings, restrooms and laundries ‘where students can help themselves’, officials from the city’s family planning service said, [...]
China rapidly aging after 30 years of birth control policy
China, the world’s most populous country, is rapidly aging after it enforced a one-child policy 30 years ago, statistics showed Wednesday. According to the China Population and Development Research, 350 million out of the expected total population of 1.45 billion will be aged over 65 by 2050. The number is equivalent to nearly one out [...]
Liberia: Something New for the Senior Class - Girls
When students return to the classroom at Bopolu Central High School this year, there will be something not seen at the school since it reopened after Liberia’s long civil war: senior-class women. Marking a milestone for a school struggling with a gender gap, eight girls are expected among Bopolu’s 24 seniors. While Bopolu’s primary grades [...]
Kenya: Camel clinics bring condoms to nomads
Photo: Nomadic Communities Trust
In the remote and rural district of Samburu, northern Kenya, where paved roads are scarce and motorised transport hard to come by, reaching the mostly pastoralist and nomadic inhabitants with HIV/AIDS services requires an unusual approach.
John Lokolale, 21, a Samburu Moran (warrior), said he did not know what the word condom meant [...]
Help for Women Who Are Forced to Get Pregnant
The old stereotype of the gold-digging hussy who gets pregnant to trap a man into marriage seems to have faded, probably because women are not as economically dependent on men as they once were. But that’s not to say that pregnancy is no longer being wielded as a weapon: researchers who work in family planning [...]
Ireland: Pharmacists call for morning-after pill to be available over the counter
Pharmacists are renewing calls for the ‘morning-after pill’ to be available over the counter. At present, women who wish to take emergency hormonal contraception require a prescription from a doctor.
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said its members have the skills to dispense such drugs and provide appropriate advice and counselling to patients. It is important [...]
Qatari women are delaying getting married and having fewer children
Women in Qatar are delaying getting married and having fewer children, as education and career now play a bigger role in their everyday lives. The recently published Millennium Development Goals in Qatar 2010 (MDG Qatar 2010) report shows that the fertility rate of Qatari women has decreased from 5.7 children per woman in 1999, to [...]
Congo rapes: Scramble for Africa
Cassiterite, wolframite, coltan: they might be the spoiled offspring of celebrity parents, or characters from an unfamiliar fairytale. The truth is much more prosaic. They are the minerals on which laptops and mobiles and even the tin of tomatoes in the cupboard depend. Cassiterite in the main component of tin oxide. Wolframite is a source [...]
Preventing Teenage Pregnancy in Ecuador
When fifteen-year-old Maria Victoria Urquizo tends to the potato-field in front of her brother’s house in the indigenous community of Guanilchig, she has a stunning view of the majestic, snow-capped Chimborazo—Ecuador’s highest mountain. At 3,500 meters (about 11,500 feet) above sea level, the morning air in this Western range of the Andes is crisp. The [...]
Niger: Small steps towards a sustainable future
Nigerien women have an average of seven children. Photo: Catherine Lune-Grayson, IRIN
The population of Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, is growing at an unsustainable rate, according to the authorities and civil society groups. If current growth rates of 3.3 percent per year remain unchanged, by 2050 Niger’s population will have reached [...]
India Tries Using Cash Bonuses to Slow Birthrates
Dr. Archana R. Khade, left, and a nurse, Sunita Laxman Jadhav, right, explained incentives to delay childbirth to a new bride near Satara this month.
Sunita Laxman Jadhav is a door-to-door saleswoman who sells waiting. She sweeps along muddy village lanes in her nurse’s white sari, calling on newly married couples with an unblushing proposition: [...]
Syria grapples with surging population
Ibrahim Issa, a jovial Syrian taxi-driver who wears a blue robe over an ample belly, has nine children from two wives. He plans to marry a third wife soon. He says it is up to Allah whether more children arrive, and not for him to interfere, say, by using contraception. Like all Damascus taxi-drivers, he [...]
Good Riddance to the Population Explosion: Keys to Prevent Unsustainable Growth
Every day, about 350,000 people are born and 150,000 die. Run this loop for a few decades, and the United Nations projects that we’re on track to increase global population by about one-third by 2050.
Most of that growth will happen in the poorest countries on Earth. Despite their poverty, those two billion people will add to [...]
Nigeria: Beating the ‘macho’ ego in reproductive health matters
In the face of a rising cycle of maternal deaths, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) and abject poverty, now is the time for the men folk to show renewed commitment to family planning methods, writes Zebulon Agomuo.
A few years ago, Mike, a company driver, lost his job and life became very difficult. Before the sad development, [...]
Victoria, Australia: Free condoms for 12 year olds
Family planning has a new twist to it, as Family Planning Victoria prepares to provide free condoms to 12-year-old students in school, in a bid to reduce teen pregnancies. The taxpayer-financed group said they should be kept in student common rooms, or distributed by machines.
“We do know that there are some very young people having [...]
US: Wisconsin Makes Push on Free Birth Control
Wisconsin is pushing to expand a controversial program that uses federal Medicaid funds to provide free birth-control pills, vasectomies and other forms of contraception to low-income people, an effort made possible by the federal health-care overhaul.
It and 26 other states already provide free contraception and other reproductive-health services through a Medicaid pilot project to lower-earning [...]
Ethiopia: Tackling the perils of pregnancy
When Safi Mukhtar had her first baby, she never considered going to a hospital or clinic for the delivery. Faced with some of the world’s worst maternal mortality statistics, the Ethiopian government hopes that next time, she will think differently. Childbirth will prove fatal for one in 27 women in Ethiopia and much of the [...]
Contraceptive pill ‘increases brain size and function’
A study found that the contraceptive of choice of an estimated 3.5 million British women – a quarter of all 16 to 49-year-olds – increases the size of parts of the brain by about three per cent. The increase in size could lead to an improvement in function, the scientists said. The Austrian research was based [...]
UK: Teenagers to be offered more contraception options
Different forms of contraception should be available to girls as young as 13. The British Medical Association (BMA) says GPs’ need to stop recommending the pill as the main method for teenagers. It’s a change to previous advice. Long-term forms of contraception such as injections, implants and coils have generally been offered to older women [...]
First Women’s Radio Station Opened in Liberia
The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, presided over the launch of the Liberia Women Democracy Radio in Monrovia on 5 August – the country’s first radio station that is dedicated to raising the voices of women and increasing women’s access to information. The radio station also seeks to highlight gender issues and to provide [...]
Coerced Reproduction
About a decade ago, Elizabeth Miller remembers seeing a certain teenage girl at a hospital clinic for adolescents in Boston. The patient thought she might be pregnant and asked for a test. When it came out negative, Miller started asking the standard questions, inquiring as to whether her patient wanted to be pregnant (she didn’t) [...]
Australia: Pendulum swings back to younger mothers
More young women are having children in their 20s, reversing a decline that has been evident for nearly 40 years. The surprise increase in births for women aged 20-24 and 25-29 began in 2006 and was sustained through 2008, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed.
It was premature to declare it a strong [...]
Korea: Low birthrate calls for more women to return to work
Korea is in dire need of raising women’s participation in economic activities, considering the rate has gone down to the level seen 10 years ago against the gloomy outlook of a population decrease expected to start in 2008. The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) sounded an alarm in a recent report, calling [...]
USA: Ella, Morning After Pill Approved By FDA
A new morning after pill, also known as an emergency contraception pill, called Ella (ulipristal acetate) has been approved in tablet form by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It has been approved as a prescription-only-product, and prevents pregnancy if taken within five days after unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure.
The FDA stresses that [...]
Russian dairy to sack women who have abortions
The head of a Russian dairy company has threatened to sack Russian Orthodox Christian employees who have abortions or refuse a religious marriage. Vassili Boiko-Veliki, president of Russkoe Moloko, said staff married in a civil ceremony had until 14 October to undertake a religious wedding. Critics said the rules violated labour laws and the constitution.
The [...]
Slogans won’t stop Taiwan’s falling birthrate
Taiwan’s population is graying very fast, while its young people do not want to get married early enough to bear more children. As a matter of fact, Taiwan’s birthrate is the lowest in the world. That’s why the government is doing what it can to encourage our younger generation to have more kids. The special [...]
Wisconsin, USA: Diocese offers birth control insurance, but warns employees not to use it
A state law is forcing the Madison Catholic Diocese this month to begin offering its employees insurance coverage for birth control. However, a diocesan spokesman said employees will be warned against using the benefit and that open defiance of Catholic teaching on the issue could ultimately lead to termination. St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison has [...]
In India, age often doesn’t stop women from seeking help to become pregnant
Rajo Devi Lohan, 72 — who gave birth to a daughter, Naveen, 18 months ago after seeking fertility treatment in India — is thought to be one of the oldest mothers in the world. (Emily Wax/the Washington Post)
Inside a crowded rural hospital, gray-haired Nananki Rohtash rested on a cot, her swollen legs elevated while her [...]
Family planning: Andhra Pradesh set to go slow
Andhra Pradesh has decided to go slow on family planning. The government has belatedly discovered that the state has the lowest fertility rate in the country and, hence, promoting family planning could lead to a reduction in AP’s population. As a first step, it has now discontinued the incentive given to women for tubectomies.
“The ‘hum [...]
Madhya Pradesh: “Promote family planning as campaign”
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has given instructions to promote family planning on a campaign basis. He said that eligible couples would be motivated to adopt family planning. Cooperation of people’s representatives will be enlisted to spread the message. All party meet would soon be convened regarding this.
He was reviewing the progress of health department [...]
Economic crisis rekindles Irish debate on abortion
Minutes after the test revealed she was pregnant, Amy saw only one option — to leave Ireland and have an abortion in Britain. Her architect partner had lost his job in Ireland’s property crash and she was worried about hers, so the 29 year-old office assistant felt she had no choice. “We found it hard [...]
Argentina Faulted for Reproductive Policies
The government of Argentina’s president, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, has reversed steps toward protecting women’s health and reproductive rights, and backtracked on its intention to guarantee access to legal abortions, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Tuesday.
Despite what seems to be a liberal social wave sweeping through Argentina — including Congress’s approval last [...]
Jordan:National Population Strategy not meeting goals
Despite efforts in Jordan to achieve the goals of the National Population Strategy, the total fertility rate (TFR) dropped by only 0.1 per cent during the last five years, according to a recently released study. The population has grown by 2.5 per cent annually in the last decade, and is expected to double by the [...]
Two pints of lager & a vasectomy please
Hundreds of Irishmen are queuing up to have the snip after vasectomy clinics started advertising on pub beermats. Family planning clinic Marie Stopes flooded pubs in Dublin with the cheeky ads, but drinkers first thought they were for something else entirely….
One man said: “When I saw the front of the beer mat I assumed it [...]
Jamaica: Two still better than too many - Principals advocate campaign to address overcrowded classrooms
President of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools, Sharon Reid, is calling for the implementation of a national family-planning policy as a long-term solution for the overcrowding in the nation’s classrooms. Reid believes this intervention is needed because Jamaicans are having too many children.
She also is of the view that the shortage of [...]
Indonesia: First Lady asks for family planning overhaul
First Lady Ani Yu-dhoyono on Sunday called for the government to revitalize the family planning programs that have been in decline since more autonomous regional administrations give it less priority. Ani said the family planning program would undoubtedly have a positive impact on the people’s and country’s welfare in the long run.
“I hope every family [...]
No coercion in efforts to control population
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad has ruled out any possibility of employing coercive means in efforts to control the country’s growing population. Mr Azad said the Government will rather promote population stabilisation by making people aware about the benefits of small families.
The Minister was speaking after flagging off a run [...]
Indonesia: Government forgets its population control program allegation
University of Indonesia economist Dorodjatun Kuntjoro Jakti said that the government was too busy with its reforms programs so that it forgot to control the growth of population. “The family planning program nowadays has been forgotten while in fact it would take a long time to begin the program again,” Dorodjatun said in his scientific oration [...]
Kenya: Abortion ‘common among teenagers’
An overwhelming majority of young girls in slums have admitted procuring abortion before they were 18 years old. A study carried out in Nairobi’s Korogocho slum shows that 90 per cent of the girls had terminated an unwanted pregnancy by age 18. This is despite the girls belonging to various religious affiliations and claiming to [...]
Few Canadians know rules on abortion, poll finds
Two-thirds of Canadians do not know that Canada has no abortion law, according to a new poll that indicates Canadians are woefully misinformed about a landmark ruling in the country’s history. The poll, which asked 1,022 Canadian adults about their understanding of the country’s abortion regulations, found that just 22% of Canadians correctly identified a [...]
India: Keeping girls in school
Within the next decade, one billion young people – the majority living in developing countries – will enter the global labour market and form the
next generation of parents. The world faces the tremendous challenge of providing economic opportunities and sustainable work for this gigantic cohort of young people. Among them are an estimated 500 million [...]
Afghan Women Fear Loss of Modest Gains
Women’s precarious rights in Afghanistan have begun seeping away. Girls’ schools are closing; working women are threatened; advocates are attacked; and terrified families are increasingly confining their daughters to home. For women, instability, as much as the Taliban themselves, is the enemy. Women are casualties of the fighting, not only in the already conservative and [...]
Another Pill That Could Cause a Revolution
Could the decades-long global impasse over abortion worldwide be overcome — by little white pills costing less than $1 each?
That seems possible, for these pills are beginning to revolutionize abortion around the world, especially in poor countries. One result may be tens of thousands of women’s lives saved each year.
Five-sixths of abortions take place in [...]
World faces condom shortage, UN says
If the world wants to reduce new HIV infections by 50 percent by 2015, the United Nations said Wednesday, people will need about 13 billion condoms. The total needed does not include the other half of expected HIV cases, other sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies.The UN this week escalated a campaign to persuade governments [...]
Pakistan: Are Millennium Development Goals attainable by 2015?
Karachi: No woman should have to pay with her life for giving life, hoped United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a recent speech on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs, recognised in 2001 by the UN, aim to eradicate poverty in the developing world. The goals include promoting universal primary education, practicing gender equality, working [...]
The women who choose not to be mothers
More women in the developed world are choosing not to have children. So why do friends, family, colleagues and even strangers think it’s OK to question their decision? We’ve come a long way, baby. Until a few decades ago, it was widely assumed that a woman would marry and, soon after, the stork would arrive [...]
U.S.: New Jersey women’s health centers react to cuts
New Jersey’s family planning health centers are bracing for reduced hours, layoffs, and even closings after Gov. Christie’s veto of a bill to restore $7.5 million for women’s health services. Planned Parenthood of Southern New Jersey, for example, expects patients will have to wait or travel longer to receive care following the elimination of state [...]
Uruguay: Millennium Goal on Maternal Health in Sight
Uruguay is on the point of reaching the Millennium Development Goal for reducing the maternal mortality ratio, but it is still behind in other aspects of maternal health, like providing integrated sexual and reproductive health care, fighting syphilis and checking on mothers and babies during the postpartum period. These targets are still far off and [...]
Pledges on Child and Maternal Health in Africa
During the three-day summit of African Union heads of state, roughly 37,000 children and 2,000 women died across Africa, mostly from preventable causes, says a civil society coalition for child and maternal health. The coalition welcomed African leaders’ pledge to make more resources available. The 15th summit of the African Union ended with a commitment [...]
Where so many children die bearing children
The Congo is a difficult place to be born, or borne — as in utero. Dangerous for the baby, dangerous for the mother and dangerous for the first five years of life — a dismal mortality rate shared with many nations in sub-Saharan Africa. But few countries on Earth are worse to be pregnant in. [...]
UK: Family planning push for developing countries
A UK government drive aims to increase access to contraception and safe abortion in developing countries. International development secretary Andrew Mitchell is now launching a consultation on the issue. The department’s programme budget is ring-fenced from cuts - but Mr Mitchell said it therefore had a “double duty” to demonstrate value for money. He says [...]
Zimbabwe: ‘Free’ Maternal Health Care Too Costly For Most
As African Union heads of state consider child and maternal health at the 2010 summit in Kampala, Uganda, the perennial question of user fees has reared its head in Zimbabwe. Fees for services are opening a growing gap between policy and implementation in maternal health care in the Southern African country.
Under government policy, care for [...]
Deputy UN chief issues calls to African leaders to make maternal health a priority
Goal 5 of the MDGs: improve maternal health
Investing in maternal and child health results in outsized benefits, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said, urging African leaders to make the issue a top priority and meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goal deadline of drastically improving reproductive care across the continent. Speaking yesterday in Kampala, Uganda, at the [...]
Money not sole reason for high maternal mortality in Africa
The ongoing 15th African Union (AU) summit is committed to deciphering the decades-long mystery of the high maternal mortality in Africa, which contributes to about 47 percent of global maternal deaths with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for the lion’s share.
Money has long been regarded as the panacea to the chronic disease of maternal deaths in the [...]
Inclusion of Birth Control on List of No-Cost Preventive Services
Interest groups are seeking to influence the Obama administration’s decision on whether to include birth control on the supplemental list of women’s preventive services that health insurers will be required to cover without out-of-pocket costs for the consumer, CQ Weekly* reports.
The new health reform law requires insurers to provide coverage of a range of preventive services [...]
Ghana: Ignorance on abortion law means death
Unsafe abortions account for more than one in 10 women who die in pregnancy in Ghana, according to new research by the US-based Guttmacher Institute, with ignorance of the law and inadequate facilities partly to blame, say health authorities. Abortion was declared legal in 1985 for women who have been raped, in cases of incest, [...]
African leaders review womens’ health
Leaders gathered to renew the Maputo Plan of Action on maternal health at the 15th African Union Summit this past Sunday afternoon in Kampala. Created by African ministers and heads of state in 2006, the Maputo Plan is one of the world’s most progressive frameworks for sexual and reproductive health and rights policy.
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The theme of [...]
Ireland: Fewer having baby in teenage years
The number of teenagers giving birth fell by more than 8% last year while an increasing amount of women over 35 sought crisis pregnancy counselling, new figures have revealed.Statistics from the Crisis Pregnancy Agency show 2,223 teenagers gave birth in 2009 - down more than 200 on the previous year. But over the past few [...]
Polygamy makes for unhappy families: Malaysian study
Men in polygamous relationships find it difficult to meet the needs of all their wives and children, and the result is unhappy and cash-strapped families, according to a landmark Malaysian study. Polygamy is legal for Muslims, who make up more than 60 percent of Malaysia’s population, allowing Muslim men to take up to four wives. [...]
Pakistan: Hillary Clinton participates in National Consultation on Birth Spacing
A high level U.S. delegation accompanying United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton on Sunday participated in a “National Consultation on Birth Spacing” organised by the Ministry of Health here. The U.S. delegation was led by the Administrator of USAID, Dr. Rajiv Shah and also included Maria Otero, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs [...]
Uganda yet to ratify women’s automatic right to abortion
Women discussing at the rural women’s conference at the Botanical Beach Hotel in Entebbe
Uganda has not ratified the Maputo Protocol which calls for the promotion of African women’s rights over abortion. The protocol, which calls for women’s civil, political and reproductive health rights, also calls for a blanket right to abortion.
The gender and culture state [...]
Uzbek women accuse state of mass sterilisations
Saodat Rakhimbayeva says she wishes she had died with her newborn baby. The 24-year-old housewife had a cesarean section in March and gave birth to Ibrohim, a premature boy who died three days later.Then came a further devastating blow: She learned that the surgeon had removed part of her uterus during the operation, making her [...]
China scores big results on UN millennium goals
China’s balanced development is helping it achieve the goals it set at the beginning of the millennium, said a representative of the United Nations. “With development its priority, China has set its own goal of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way,” said Silvia Morimoto, deputy country director of United Nations Development Programme [...]
Australian study: Women fear the morning-after pill
Women have been scared off using the “morning-after” pill by misinformation about how it works and where they can get it, reproductive health experts say. The first national study of women’s use of emergency contraception since it was made available over the counter has found most do not know they can buy it without a [...]
Kenya: Church under attack over stand on abortion
Religious leaders campaigning against the Proposed Constitution have come under criticism from a global organization for their stand on abortion.
Ms Brook Elliott Buettner has accused the clergymen of favouring the life of the unborn child over that of the mother.
“I am baffled by the one-sidedness of trying to protect fetal life [...]
Morning-after pill use varies widely overseas
In 11 European countries where the morning-after pill is widely available, its use by sexually active 15-year-olds varies widely, with the highest use among the French, researchers report.
After analyzing information from more than 2000 sexually active 15-year-old girls, European researchers led by A. Gaudineau of the University Paul Sabatier in [...]
Stay committed to help women
AS the chairman of a regional alliance for safe abortion, I would like to refer to your report “Child mums” (The Star, June 26) touching on the problem of teen pregnancies.
This was followed by comments from ministers and welfare NGOs, debating on preventive measures through better sex education and supporting mothers [...]
Spain’s unrestricted abortion law takes effect
A new Spanish law allowing abortion without restrictions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy [has come] into effect but the Constitutional Court could yet intervene to suspend or change it.
The law, approved by Parliament in February, was the latest item on a liberal agenda undertaken by the Socialist government, which took power in [...]
G8 Maternal Health Initiative must include funding for family planning
After months of speculation and debate over the priorities, the 2010 G8 Summit in Muskoka, Canada concluded by affirming a sustainable commitment to maternal, newborn and child health through a total contribution of US$ 5 billion over the next 5 years. But overall the G8 commitment to health and development [...]
Life-Threatening Abortions: A Frequent Practice In Brazil
It should come as no surprise that a country whose population is 74 per cent Roman Catholic bans abortion. In Brazil, the prohibition of abortion dates back to 1940.
Today, the procedure can only be legally practiced if medical complications threaten a woman’s life, or when a pregnancy results from incest or rape. [...]
Pope gives top job to abortion hardliner
Cardinal Marc Ouellet has said terminations are wrong even in rape cases.
The pope handed one of the most powerful jobs in the Vatican to a cardinal who said recently that abortion was wrong, even in cases of rape.
The reshuffle also saw a senior prelate moved from the institution that helps frame [...]
Nigeria: Judge Calls for Reform of Abortion Law
Justice Ishaq Bello of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court Tuesday in Abuja called for the reform of abortion law in Nigeria on grounds that laws should be pragmatic enough to reflect current realities.
Bello who spoke at the inauguration of the FCT Chapter of the Network of the Bar, Bench and [...]
Arguments vs contraception
Those who favor the Reproductive Health Bill are spreading the error that arguments against artificial contraception are exclusively religious in nature. That is why, they keep on harping that the Catholic Bishops should mind their own business and keep their moral opinions to themselves.
Firstly, this view is erroneous because religious leaders [...]
Saving lives in Southern Sudan
Mayom County, Unity State, Southern Sudan – Maternal death is unfortunately, just another ‘fact of life’ in Sudan where 450 women in every 100,000 die each year as a result of being pregnant or giving birth. Access to quality healthcare is difficult but MSI Southern Sudan which began operating a few [...]
Indonesia: Early marriage triggers high births
The high annual birth rate of 730,000 on average in West Java is attributable to women getting married early, at around the age of 18, says West Java National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN) secretary Safrudin Hidayat. The West Java BKKBN recorded the number of youths marrying at a young age stood at 12 percent, [...]
‘Childfree’ is new word of reproductive choice
Nearly one in five U.S. women see their child-bearing years come and go without having a baby, up from just one in 10 in the 1970s. The dramatic increase, described in a new report by the Pew Research Center, is consistent across all racial and ethnic groups, and most education levels.
But at the same time [...]
UN: Empowerment of women tops agenda at ECOSOC
The annual high-level segment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) opened Monday with speakers calling for women and girls to be placed at the center of the global struggle. According to a press release issued by the UN Information Center (UNIC) here on Tuesday, the move was aimed at achieving the social [...]
Ghana: Family Planning Devices Run Short
The most preferred family planning (FP) method in the Upper East Region, Depo Provera, has run short forcing some clients to resort to other methods while others go without it, waiting for new supply. The clients, who use the Depo Provera method that is given through injection, prefer it to the others because it lasts [...]
Increasing numbers consider abortion ‘because of recession’
Women in increasing numbers are considering terminating pregnancies as a consequence of the recession, according to Dublin’s Well Woman Centre. Chief executive Alison Begas said yesterday that up to one in five of the 2,000 of so women who presented to Well Woman for pregnancy counselling last year cited financial concerns as the main reason why [...]
Wrangling Continues over New U.N. Women’s Entity
Ahead of a week-long meeting on gender equality starting Monday at the United Nations, women’s rights activists have been pushing for concrete progress on a pledge made last September by the world body to create a new, better-funded U.N. agency for women. After the Gender Equality Reform (GEAR) Campaign, a leading advocate of the new [...]
Reduction in funds for maternal and infant health criticised
Canada announced on Friday a multibillion-dollar initiative to combat infant mortality and improve maternal health globally, but the aid package was far smaller than expected, undercut by a new drive toward austerity that reduced the contributions of wealthy nations. Aid groups promptly slammed the $7.3 billion effort as insufficient, having expected the world’s richest nations [...]
Studies of Women`s Attitudes to `Social Egg Freezing` Find That Young Professionals Put Career Ahead of Motherhood or Are Still Waiting for Mr Right
Women of different ages differ in their reasons for wishing to undergo egg freezing, show two studies presented to the 26th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday). A large number of female university students would be prepared to undertake egg freezing in an attempt to combine career success [...]
Europe:Right to conscientious objection by healthcare providers could be regulated
Regulations to define and govern conscientious objection by healthcare providers might be called for by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In a draft resolution, former Labour MP for Calder Valley Christine McCafferty calls for the introduction of a comprehensive and clear legal and policy framework to govern the practice, along with an [...]
Philippines: Sex education classes in limbo with priest as education chief
The incoming Aquino administration has named a priest as its Education secretary, throwing into doubt the fate of a UN-funded program to include sex education in the curriculum of elementary and secondary schools as a way to reduce teenage pregnancies. Armin Luistro, the president of De La Salle University, accepted an offer from President-elect Benigno [...]
Philippines: New family planning drive targets 1.3% growth rate
This year, the country’s population growth rate has been pegged at 1.9 percent. The government needs to bring it down further to 1.3-1.4 percent for the population to stabilize, said Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral on Monday. This could be achieved, Cabral said, by employing, among other strategies, an “intensified family planning campaign” that focuses on [...]
Sterilisation on rise as India seeks escape from poverty
Sterilisation is making a comeback in India. Economic pressures and a desire to move out of poverty is prompting growing numbers of women and men to voluntarily end their reproductive days early.
Little more than three decades after India coerced thousands of people into being sterilised, creating a generation deeply suspicious of all contraceptive means, the [...]
China’s one and only
This long article from Al Jazeera presents a balanced view of the pros and cons of ’stopping at one’.
In the three decades that China’s one-child policy has been in place, the Chinese government claims it has prevented 400 million births. Its implementation has been relaxed over the years with numerous exemptions now permitted, but its longer-term consequences [...]
USA: Panel Recommends Approval of After-Sex Pill to Prevent Pregnancy
A federal advisory panel voted unanimously Thursday that federal drug regulators should approve a medicine that could help prevent pregnancy if taken as late as five days after unprotected sex. The pill, called ella, sprang from government labs and appears to be more effective than Plan B, a morning-after pill now available over the counter [...]
Overcoming Pakistan’s population challenge
According to the UN’s latest mid-range demographic projections for Pakistan, the country’s population–currently about 185 million–will rise to 335 million by 2050. This explosive increase, however, represents the best-case scenario: Should fertility rates remain constant, the UN estimates this figure could approach 460 million. Such soaring population growth, coupled with youthful demographics, a dismal education [...]
How India’s six-child family became three
Oldest of four children, 16-year-old Amruta is determined not to have any more than one or two children, pictured in her house in a local slum called Goutam Nagar, in Agra
AGRA, INDIA—Amruta, a shy teenager with large eyes and a pretty smile, sleeps on the dirt floor of her family’s home in a gritty slum, [...]
Philippines: Poor women pay for contraception
Statistics show that women in the Philippines end up having one more child than they actually want. Photo: Ana Santos/IRIN
Insufficient public funding for family planning services means poor women have to buy contraceptives from pharmacies rather than getting them free from clinics. ”Social disparities and lack of access to services make the poorest of our women [...]
Somali Women Concerned about High Levels of Rights Violations
Nairobi — The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Somalia (SRSG), Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, invited Somali women to share their experiences, concerns and recommendations on the implementation of UN Security Coucil resolution 1325 in Nairobi on 9 June, on the occasion of the Global [...]
Abortion ad draws 600 complaints to C4
Channel 4 received more than 600 complaints over its decision to air an advert for Marie Stopes, the charity that offers advice on issues surrounding abortions and sexual health. The screening of the advert, during the first episode of gameshow The Million Pound Drop on Monday 24 May, marked the first time a UK broadcaster [...]
Gates Foundation Pledges $1.5 Billion to Child And Maternal Health
7 June - Here in Washington today, Melinda Gates took the stage at a global health conference and called on world leaders to step up their commitment to improving care for mothers and children. And to show her commitment, she announced a grant worth one and a half billion dollars from the Bill and Melinda [...]
Health issues and anti-poverty targets top Ban’s trip to Washington and Africa
4 June 2010 – Boosting maternal health and developing ways to overcome and respond to diseases such as HIV/AIDS will be the focus of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s upcoming visit to Washington and five African countries starting on Monday. In Washington, Mr. Ban will open the Women Deliver 2010 conference, which is the largest-ever gathering on [...]
David Cameron calls on G8 to target maternal deaths
Britain is to press its G8 partners to intensify efforts to lower the “shocking and shameful” levels of maternal mortality which have barely fallen in many developing countries over the past 20 years, David Cameron announces today. In his first Guardian article since taking over as prime minister, Cameron calls for the G8/G20 summit in [...]
Pushing Babies: The Assault on Childless Women
Childless women of all ages are under assault in America. If you’re a teenager, you’re pushed toward motherhood by “moralizers” bent on denying you information about, and access to, birth control. If you’re a women 35 and older, you’ve been subject to a decade of news stories set to the ominous sound of a ticking [...]
The case against having kids
Elaine Lui was 29 years old and had been married for a year when she and her husband, Jacek Szenowicz, decided that they didn’t want children. “Before that, we didn’t give it a lot of thought,” says the Vancouver-based eTalk reporter who writes the popular celebrity gossip blog LaineyGossip.com. “It was just an assumption, ‘You [...]
Family planning in conflict areas
“Displaced people are like every other human being, they want, they need the advantage of family planning. They are asking only for services to be available for them, affordable for them, and acceptable for them,” said Dr. Grace Kodindo in a recent interview with ECSP about the challenges of family planning in conflict regions. The [...]
Crown Princess of Denmark becomes patron of UNFPA to support women’s health
H.R.H. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has become Patron of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, to support the agency’s work to promote maternal health and safer motherhood in more than 150 developing nations. This work is a UNFPA key priority because women have about 1 in 7 lifetime risk of maternal death in a [...]
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