Lee Middleton
Volunteers for the Sonke Gender Justice Network door-to-door medical male circumcision campaign. Credit: Lee Middleton/IPS
CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 2011 (IPS) – Although at first glance male circumcision may not be the most obvious entrée to get people talking about gender equality, activists in the Western Cape in South Africa are attempting to do just that.
BHUBANESHWAR, India, Jan 27 2012 (IPS) – The primitive Juang tribe in remote Nola village on Chandragiri hill experienced its first three institutional childbirths only a month ago.
Male Health Activists at a strategy session. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
Credit for the safe deliveries goes to Malay Ranjan Juanga, a ‘male health activist’ (MHA) entrusted with mother and child health in his community of 94 households in Nola.
Set eight km away from the main road, Nola and is best reached by trekking up the treacher…
Correspondents* – IPS/Haiti Grassroots Watch
Gérald Saintilimé and Gary Mathieu digging a septic pit at the Tabarre Issa camp. Credit: Fritznelson Fortuné
TABARRE, Haiti, Mar 7 2012 (IPS) – Complete with gallery and garden, the 534 wood and plasterboard houses are arranged in neat rows on a gravel plot of former sugarcane land northwest of the capital.
At first glance, all seems normal in this new community, or as normal as anything has been in a country that suffered a 7.0 earthquake 26 months ago.
In most camps, refugees complain because they are still…
LALMONIRHAT, Bangladesh, Apr 19 2012 (IPS) – The Aditmari Maternity Centre (AMC) is unpretentious but hygienic, and its staff of paramedics welcomes pregnant women from the poor farming villages of this district, 375 km northwest of Dhaka.
Nurse Afroz counsels an expecting mother at the Aditmari centre. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS
Asphalt roads lead up to the single storey, located in the centre of Aditmari sub-district, that has a labour room equipped for normal deliveries, a ten-bed post-labour room…
PARIS, May 21 2012 (IPS) – Have women around the world become more empowered in their reproductive health and rights over the past 18 years? This is one of the questions that some 300 parliamentarians from around the world will be examining when they meet in Istanbul, Turkey, this week for the Fifth International Parliamentarians’ Conference on the Implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) programme of action.
At the event, on May 24 and 25, MPs from six continents will discuss the progress the world’s governments are making in their efforts to protect and empower women in their reproductive health and rights: a promise they made at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 in Cairo , says the European Parlia…
Children with congenital disorders linked to the Bhopal gas leak at a candle-light vigil in December 2011. Credit: Chingari Trust/IPS
WASHINGTON, Jul 5 2012 (IPS) – After a controversial ruling Friday in favour of Union Carbide, NGOs and activists associated with the 1984 Bhopal, India industrial disaster are appealing the decision in the U.S. second circuit court of appeals.
Judge John Keenan s dismissal of a lawsuit against Dow Chemical Company s Union Carbide angered Indian activists the world over. Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001.
Keenan ruled that neither Union Carbide nor its former chairman, Warren Anderson, were liable for environmental remediation in th…
New research on the high prevalence of kidney disease in Sri Lanka’s farming areas mentions a possible link to heavy metals in the water, associated with fertiliser and pesticide use. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
COLOMBO, Aug 21 2012 (IPS) – A new report links the high prevalence of chronic kidney disease in Sri Lanka’s main agricultural production regions with the presence of heavy metals in the water, caused by fertiliser and pesticide use.
Over the past two decades, dozens of studies have been conducted on the large number of kidney patients in Sri Lanka’s agro-rich north-central region. However, none had conclusively identified a clear cause.
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Greeks citizens protesting against the public spending cuts that have accompanied the austerity package. Credit: Bego Astigarraga/IPS
ATHENS, Oct 10 2012 (IPS) – Like a person on life support whose vital functions are failing, the Greek economy is slowly but surely shutting down as radiation from the so-called ‘austerity plan’ erodes public institutions.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived here on Tuesday morning for an economic assessment of the debt-ravaged country, she did not see the things that, for thousands, have become commonplace: cancer patients dying outside clinics, unable to access the treatment they need, or kindergart…
A Salafi rally in Cairo. Islamist leaders are pushing to reduce Egypt’s legal marriage age for girls, some arguing for as low as nine. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.
CAIRO, Nov 14 2012 (IPS) – An ultraconservative Salafi cleric recently sparked outrage among Egypt’s liberal circles when he attempted to justify his opposition to a proposed constitutional article that would outlaw the trafficking of women for sex.
Speaking on privately-owned Al-Nas satellite channel, Sheikh Mohamed Saad El-Azhary said he feared the proposed article could conflict with the local practice of child marriage. He explained that in Egypt, particularly in rural areas, there is a culture of …
BAMAKO , Dec 28 2012 (IPS) – In the southern Senegal village of Kael Bessel, female genital mutilation is no longer a taboo subject. Sexagenarian Fatoumata Sabaly speaks freely about female circumcision and girls rights with her friends.
We ve found it necessary to abandon cutting – abandoning the practice has advantages for women, she told IPS. Female circumcision has consequences such as haemorrhaging and it can even lead to death.
In Senegal, like other West African countries, grandmothers like Sabaly are generally the ones who decide girls should be circumcised. A 2008 survey in Vélingara, also in the south of Senegal, found nearly 60 percent of older women supported female genital mutilation. But a 2011 survey carried out by the Grandmother Project found fully …