Archive for category: Women

Information and news about woman issues

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Five Organizations Helping Women in Developing Countries

Organizations Helping Women in Developing CountriesMen, women and children in developing countries face many common struggles. But women living in poverty must also contend with their own set of unique challenges, such as sexual violence and educational discrimination. Ahead are five organizations helping women in developing countries.

 

  1. The Malala Fund
    Founded by the international human rights icon Malala Yousafzai, the Malala Fund is one of the most famous organizations helping girls and women get an education in developing countries. The Malala Fund works directly with girls in local communities to advocate for their education. Donations to the fund are used to invest in schools and supplies, as well as place activists and educators in the girls’ communities. The organization primarily helps girls in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and countries housing Syrian refugees such as Lebanon and Jordan.
  2. PERIOD
    Taboos and traditions surrounding menstruation pose a significant health threat to women and girls in many developing countries. Just last month, a Nepali teenager died while observing her culture’s tradition of separating menstruating women from their families in “menstrual huts.” PERIOD is a nonprofit working to break the taboo around periods through advocacy and education. It also distributes period products to women in need.
  3. The Orchid Project
    Female genital cutting is a devastating practice that many women undergo in developing regions such as West Africa. The Orchid Project is one of many organizations working to end this human rights violation. This organization raises awareness of this damaging tradition and advocates for more resources for its victims. They also partner with grassroots organizations to educate local communities about the misconceptions and dangers surrounding FGC in order to end this dangerous practice.
  4. Prajwala
    Prajwala, which means “eternal flame,” is an Indian organization founded by social activist Dr. Sunitha Krishnan. The nonprofit rescues victims of sex trafficking. Prajwala works to keep these women out of prostitution by providing them with education, mental health care and job training.
  5. Women for Women
    Conflict disproportionately occurs in developing regions, and women are often the overlooked victims of this violence. Women for Women is a nonprofit that provides women in conflict zones with an empowerment program. The program equips women with business skills, job skills and networking opportunities. Women for Women also provides women in conflict zones with resources such as microfinancing and access to local healthcare sources.

Women in developing countries have their own special needs beyond challenges such as hunger and health problems. These are just a few of the many organizations helping women in the developing world.

– Bret Serbin

Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About Improving Women’s Education

Improving Women's EducationIn January 2014, former U.S. President Barack Obama stated, “You can judge a nation, and how successful it will be, based on how it treats its women and its girls.” Indeed, educating women throughout the world has proven a pivotal locus for ensuring communities’ and countries’ social and economic success. In order to highlight some of the tremendous growth that women and girls’ education generates, here are 10 facts about improving women’s education.

  1. Emphasizing the need for ensuring the continual empowerment of women worldwide, the United Nations made equal access to education for girls a central focus of its Millennium Development Goals. The U.N. has made the elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education its third goal. Furthermore, it sought to reconcile the injustice that limited women’s opportunities for both education and, by extension, employment. Since the completion of the Millennium Development Goals, women have constituted 41 percent of paid workers in fields outside of agriculture. This is a tremendous increase from the 1990 rate of 35 percent.
  2. Educated women are likely to marry at later ages and consequently have fewer children. In fact, by simply providing girls with an extra year of schooling, nations can reduce a woman’s fertility rate by 5 to 10 percent. Limiting the number of individuals present will ensure improved accessibility to resources and better opportunities for all people, particularly in countries struggling with overpopulation, such as Nigeria and China.
  3. Girls who stay in school longer lower their probability of contracting HIV, thereby adding securing their health and wellbeing. In fact, the Girls Global Education Fund has reported that in Africa, children born to mothers who have not received education have a one in five chance of dying before age 5.
  4. Improving women’s education promotes continued education for whole families. In sending women to school, they are likely to encourage their children’s educations. This chain reaction illustrates the ways in which educating a girl improves an entire nation’s access to education.
  5. For each additional year that a girl spends in primary school, her wages increase by up to 20 percent. By continuing with her education through secondary school, her wages increase by 25 percent. Improving education for girls therefore ensures their socioeconomic stability and successes worldwide.
  6. By providing women and girls access to education, the probability of their involvement in the political process increases. Through education, women are more likely to participate in civic engagement and decision-making. Consequently, this promotes a more representative government. In fact, the average proportion of women in parliaments across the world has doubled over the past 20 years. This is a direct result of the success of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals in reducing the gender disparity in primary and secondary school education.
  7. In recent years, young women accounted for 59 percent of the total illiterate population. By providing women and girls with an education, illiteracy rates worldwide will inevitably increase, suggesting the overarching trend of global educational success.
  8. Educational depravation for women and girls has proven costly for the global economy. By refusing to give women and girls education, individual economies suffer as much as a $1 billion loss in revenue. Throughout the world, this constitutes a $92 billion loss each year. This suggests that investing in women’s education is a lucrative decision for all nations to make.
  9. Girls’ education has a tremendous impact on the environment. According to the Brookings Institution, secondary educational opportunities for women remain the most cost-effective investment against climate change.
  10. When girls are educated, communities maintain their stability at higher rates and can recover faster from conflict. By providing women and girls with secondary educational opportunities, nations also reduce their risk of war substantially and secure limitations on terrorism and extremism.

Ultimately, girls’ education holds significant implications for the global community. By improving women’s education, the world thrives both socially and economically. It is critical for nations to invest in women’s education in order to guarantee both individual and global success.

– Emily Chazen

Photo: Flickr

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Half of Humanity: Healthy Menstruation for Female Refugees

The organization Half of Humanity is working to combat an issue that often gets swept under the rug: unhealthy menstrual practices within refugee populations.

The organization’s most recent efforts have been teaming up with NuDay Syria to provide culturally appropriate feminine hygiene products to Syrian refugees. The kit includes a one-month supply of absorbent pads, wipes, soap, two doses of ibuprofen, candies and a handwritten note in Arabic that says, “You are beautiful!”

While other organizations share the goal of promoting healthy menstruation in vulnerable populations, Half of Humanity takes a culturally sensitive approach. For example, Syrian culture condemns the use of tampons, which is why none are included in the hygiene kit. All of the candies are halal out of respect for practicing Muslims.

Half of Humanity’s aid has concentrated primarily on displaced female populations in the Middle East and North Africa, where women are particularly vulnerable to stigma as well as unhealthy menstrual practices. Refugees who cannot afford hygienic products in these low-income areas are likely to use unsanitary alternatives to hide their menstruation, such as unclean rags, grass or even trash.

The organization’s mission in target areas is critical. For example, in 2012, 51 percent of displaced Syrian women in Jordan experienced symptoms of a reproductive tract infection. Improper menstrual practices can also increase chances of HIV and pregnancy complications.

Menstruation also limits many women’s societal engagement. Studies conducted in Africa have shown that many girls consistently miss out on important opportunities such as schooling every month because public areas lack proper sanitation facilities.

Brianna Curran, the founder of Half of Humanity, hopes to enable female refugees to engage in civil action regardless of where they are in the menstrual cycle. Curran has received much recognition for her dedication to the cause, including a spot on the “30 under 30” list of remarkable young people working towards development, sustainability and human rights, created by the Center for Development and Strategy.

While Half of Humanity’s goals are constantly shifting to meet the needs of target populations, its overall impact has served to empower female refugees in both North Africa and the Middle East to engage with the rest of society all days of the month.

– Kailey Dubinsky

Photo: Flickr

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Female Victims of Sex Trafficking in India Get a Second Chance

Female Victims of Sex Trafficking in India Get a Second ChanceMillions of women and children in India are victims of sex trafficking. The National Crimes Records Bureau states that a girl falls victim to sex trafficking every eight minutes in India. Many are told that they will be assisted in finding a job or even a potential marriage to alleviate them of their poverty, making them trusting of traffickers and easier targets for prostitution.

In 2014, police in India recorded 2,604 sex trafficking cases, but more than three-quarters of the traffickers accused went unpunished. The Better India states that “less than 50 child prostitution cases in a year lead to successful convictions on average.” Current laws are not effective enough in preventing human trafficking in India.

The Dutch anti-trafficking group Free a Girl created a new approach to the sex trafficking issue in India, called The School for Justice. It launched in April of this year with 19 women who were victims of sex trafficking in India. Not only are these women training to be lawyers but they are also gaining empowerment in a community in which they are ostracized.

The program financially and emotionally supports the process. It enrolls them into a university so that they can receive a bachelor’s degree in law. The rescued girls live in a house together while receiving food and an education to prepare them for a future career. For each student in The School for Justice program, it costs $3,400 per year which is covered by donors for the first two years.

Having women who were once trafficked as prostitutes become members of India’s legal system is a huge step for the country. Not only are females that are trafficked not welcome back with their families, they are also more likely to be arrested. These women are not receiving the help that they need once they escape sex trafficking in India.

The main goal of The School for Justice is to provide the help and resources needed to create prosecutors out of the victims of trafficking in India. This could be a small change that eventually leads to holding traffickers accountable for their actions and keeping women and children out of trafficking. Per The Better India, “not only will these brave women finally be able to chart a course of their own life but they will also be saving the lives of others like themselves in the process.”

– Mackenzie Fielder
Photo: Flickr

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Human Rights in Liberia & Solutions

Human Rights in LiberiaOn March 14, 2017, on behalf of the European Union, the launch of a three-year “Land Rights for Liberia” project has brought new hope for the final passing of the Lands Rights Act. This would secure ownership of land to the community, as well as increase human rights in Liberia.

The Land Rights Act (LRA) is currently under review and debate in the National Legislature. However, the European Union, through the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Welthungerhilfe (WHH), is pressing for the adoption of the Act before it goes on recess by August 30.

According to the World Bank, 1.6 million hectares of Liberian land (the equivalent of 2 million football fields) has been sold or leased to commercial investors. These investors are interested in the land mostly for palm oil plantations, mines and timber concessions.

Consequently, this leaves more than two-thirds of Liberia’s land under customary tenure, with little or no consultation with those directly affected. Hundreds of thousands of people in Liberia have died through civil wars and violence caused by land disputes.

 

Human Rights in Liberia & Land Rights

 

Although the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has supported the act, the government has continued to grant concession of the land to various investors. Ali Kaba, of the Sustainable Development Institute, stated, “Land grabs in Liberia have effectively turned citizens into refugees in their own country…We cannot continue on in a state where people’s homes and farms can be sold out from under them without their knowledge or consent, and where those who resist face violence.”

Despite the disputes of the past, the launch of the “Land Rights for Liberia” project promotes newfound momentum in order to get the act passed and secure further human rights in Liberia, especially for those living in rural communities.

The act would legally recognize those rights of the community to Liberia’s “customary land,” and the people would be able to reclaim the land they have lived and worked on for generations.

The passing of the Land Rights Act would also improve human rights in Liberia. It would reduce discrimination against women and other vulnerable groups who were unable to own land.

As Amina Bello, the Project Manager of CAFOD said, “The passage of Liberia’s land rights Act will increase women’s decision making power and improve family livelihoods…such women empowerment will further contribute to the eradication of poverty.”

With the passage of the Land Rights Act, farmers will be able to focus on sustainable food as well as nutrition security. As a result, food production will increase and can better support the growing Liberian population.

The”Land Rights for Liberia” project has placed added pressure on the passage of the Land Rights Act, which is necessary in order to secure various improvements for human rights in Liberia. It will rightfully return the land to the people.

– Kendra Richardson

Photo: Flickr

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Powerful Women in Poor Countries


Women in developing countries are one of the most vulnerable and oppressed groups in the world. But even in the face of challenges such as disproportionate violence, child marriages, teenage pregnancy and minimal education, many women are fighting back. The Borgen Project highlights five powerful women in poor countries who are asserting their power against fierce adversity.

  1. Malala Yousafzai
    This international icon has been an inspiration to girls everywhere since she survived a Taliban attack in 2012. The Pakistani teenager was targeted by the extremist group for her advocacy in support of girls’ education rights. Since her miraculous recovery, Yousafzai has continued her fight against gender inequality by founding the Malala Fund. This organization advocates for and invests in girls’ education in the poorest and most unequal countries in the world. At age 17, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Her story of resistance has made her one of the most powerful women in poor countries.
  2. Eqbal Dauqan
    This Yemeni scientist is breaking cultural barriers and scientific boundaries despite hardship and discrimination. Like Malala, she has been physically attacked for defiance of her culture’s strict gender roles. She was forced to flee to Malaysia from the civil war in her native Yemen. In the face of these extreme obstacles, Dauqan has managed to become an awarded chemist. In a country where many women need a man’s permission to leave the house, Dauqan earned a college degree and a Ph.D. in biochemistry. She has gone on to publish a popular book, earn international awards for her scientific contributions and be named assistant professor and head of her department at Al Saeed University. It is no wonder that NPR calls her “unstoppable.”
  3. Majd Al-Asharawy
    This Palestinian inventor created Green Cake, a revolutionary new building block made from ashes. In her war-torn home of Gaza, resources are limited and many buildings are in ruins. Al-Asharawy researched for six months to develop her special brick out of the resources available in Gaza. Green Cake is environmentally friendly and fire-resistant, weighs half what a concrete block does and costs half the price. This inspiring young inventor is yet another woman utilizing her limited resources to revolutionize the world around her.
  4. Ishita Sharma
    India is one of the most rapidly improving countries in the developing world, but gender equality in the country is not up to pace. Ninety-two women are raped in India every day. After being harassed by men on the street, Sharma teamed up with a kung fu coach to offer free self-defense classes to underprivileged girls. By working with parents and teachers in the girls’ communities, she has built up a small army of girls with the skills and confidence to defend themselves. Sharma is helping to equip more powerful women in poor countries to stand up to violence and sexual harassment.
  5. Drukpa Order “Kung Fu” Nuns
    In Southeast Asia, the human trafficking of young girls is rampant. Five hundred Buddhist nuns from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet are fighting this practice through a 4,000-kilometer bike trip. For the fourth time, the nuns biked from Kathmandu to Leh, India to raise awareness of human trafficking and promote messages of gender equality. Along the way, they met with local officials, provided food to poor communities and helped marginalized people access medical care. They are even trained in martial arts to defend themselves against male harassment. These powerful women in poor countries are blazing a new trail for girls in Southeast Asia.

There is still a lot of work to be done by the international community and local governments to support gender equality in the developing world. But these powerful women in poor countries are proving that they are far from powerless.

– Bret Anne Serbin

Photo: Flickr

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10 Women Who Have Helped Fight Global Poverty


Female leaders play a critical role in helping to end global poverty. Emphasizing the need for equity, education and improved health care services, these women have used their minds and resources as means for bettering the conditions of the world. Here is a list of 10 women who have helped fight global poverty.

Michelle Obama
Recognizing the necessity of educating girls and women around the world, Michelle Obama has continually advocated on behalf of the world’s poor. Citing education as a leading contributor to fighting global poverty, Michelle Obama has suggested that, by giving girls and women access to schooling, global poverty can be ended. In 2016, she launched a Twitter campaign entitled #62milliongirls, seeking to raise awareness regarding the number of women who remain uneducated. That year, with funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, she announced plans to provide $100 million for education efforts. Her efforts to emphasize education have managed to hinder the perpetuity of poverty throughout the world.

Angela Merkel
The current chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel provided Global Citizens with a straightforward message prior to the G20 Summit. She stated that the G20 group of major economies has “a shared responsibility to enable people worldwide to live in dignity.” Suggesting that the interconnectivity of the world established through the Internet and economy links people now more than ever, she emphasized sustainability and development. Merkel has established an ongoing desire to reduce poverty and conflict by teaming up with African nations to create stability. When she was declared Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2015, one of the main reasons cited was her tremendous generosity with refugees, having provided one million with refuge.

J. K. Rowling
Another of the most influential women who have helped fight global poverty is J. K. Rowling. She is a tremendous advocate on behalf of the world’s orphans, demanding that they receive more help than they were once provided. The author of the Harry Potter series established the Lumos Foundation, which works to help millions of children worldwide to regain their right to a family in the face of poverty, disability and minority status.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey does tremendous work for girls globally. Like Michelle Obama, Oprah values the role of education in improving women’s quality of life. As a result, she has funded a number of organizations that seek to grant women additional rights worldwide, including Women for Women International and Girl Effect. Women for Women International has assisted over 462,000 marginalized women in unstable, war-torn nations. Girl Effect prides itself on creating a new normal, where girls previously living in poverty are empowered through technology and safe spaces.

Melinda Gates
One of the two leaders of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates has made incredible strides toward ending global poverty. Emphasizing the need for quality healthcare and education in order to end poverty, Gates has used her organization to help provide children in poverty with exactly that. In particular, for many communities around the world, the Gates Foundation has provided financial tools to the poor, taught farmers how to increase production sustainability, helped women with family-planning, increased college completion rates and combatted infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV and polio.

Angelina Jolie
The recipient of the 2005 Global Humanitarian Action Award for her work with the U.N. Refugee Agency and refugees themselves, Angelina Jolie epitomizes global advocacy. Supporting 29 charities, including the Alliance for the Lost Boys of Sudan, the Clinton Global Initiative, Doctors Without Borders and the U.N. Millennium Project, Jolie has done unbelievable work in terms of ending global poverty. In 2016, Jolie worked to bring light to the ongoing need to help Syrian refugees.

Cindy Levin
Cindy Levin is another one of the most influential women who have helped fight global poverty. Seeking to engage children and stay-at-home parents in global child survival, she works to teach grassroots volunteers to fundraise through an organization known as RESULTS. In October of 2012, Levin traveled to Uganda with the U.N. Foundation’s Shot@Life Campaign, personally meeting mothers living in poverty. On that journey, she accompanied UNICEF to health programs days, which provided vaccines and AIDS testing to people living in the area.

Ellen Gustafson
Sustainable food system activist, author, innovator and social entrepreneur Ellen Gustafson has given TED talks about the necessity of using food as a means for ending global poverty. The creator of the ChangeDinner campaign, she seeks to change the food systems at dinner tables and in schools around the world. She is now a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ertharin Cousin
The former executive director of the World Food Programme, Ertharin Cousin has been fighting global hunger since 2012. Using innovative tactics, Cousin implemented a program called “forecast-based financing.” The program utilized weather models to identify droughts prior to their occurrence in order to emphasize proactivity. Ultimately, the goal of this program was to enable countries to grow enough food before disaster hit, saving both money and lives.

Jacqueline Novogratz
Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and chief executive officer of an organization called Acumen. Acumen prioritizes the voices of the world’s poor, using them as a compass for eliminating poverty. By creating the organization, Novogratz helped make significant strides in emphasizing what the poor truly need.

Clearly, women who have helped fight global poverty play a large role in beginning to combat the issue. While male, female and gender non-binary leaders continue to contribute significantly, it is still incumbent upon governments to provide funds to help address the problem. Only by ensuring that each of these entities works in tandem can the world truly ensure that poverty comes to an end.

– Emily Chazen

Photo: Flickr

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Improving the Lives of Sierra Leonean Women and Children

Sierra Leonean Women

Sierra Leone’s education disparity is affecting the quality and accessibility of reproductive healthcare. Low education parallels with the inaccessibility of contraception, consultations and health facilities. Contraception usage, like injectables and the pill, is six times higher among wealthy Sierra Leonean women. Early childbearing before the age of 18 among poor women is 58 percent, as opposed to 29 percent for their wealthy counterparts. The total fertility rate among poor Sierra Leonean women is about twice that of wealthy women with a higher education.

Sierra Leone’s underdeveloped reproductive healthcare access also puts its adolescent women at risk. Young women between the ages of 15 and 19 are at a greater risk of infant and child mortality, as well as high risks of morbidity and mortality for the young mother.

Additionally, 28 percent of poor Sierra Leonean women give birth unaccompanied by health personnel, as opposed to the 78 percent of their rich counterparts accompanied by health personnel during childbirth. The reason for this, the World Bank logged, is that 89 percent of women experience at least one problem accessing healthcare, 80 percent lack sufficient funds for treatment and 53 percent live too far from health facilities to travel to.

Mary Turey, a maternal health promoter in Kamalo village in Sierra Leone’s Northern Bombali District, has acknowledged the proximity issue. She and other villagers offer a room in their homes for women traveling long distances to health facilities to stay safely overnight. Turey provides women with essential information about pregnancy and refers them to nearby health centers. In 2014, she and her fellow villagers referred 3,862 pregnant Sierra Leonean women to health facilities, where they were able to give birth safely.

In terms of policy and legislation, USAID created the Child Survival and Health Grants Program – dubbed ‘Al Pikin fo Liv’ or ‘Every Child Must Live’ – in order to carry out the goal of ending preventable neonatal and maternal deaths. Its partnerships with nongovernmental organizations, academia and ministries of health have trained 1,300 health workers and peer supervisors, developing and enhancing the quality of care at health units for procedures across the board. The Child Survival and Health Grants Program has improved the health of more than 36,000 children and 37,000 women in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

– Tiffany Teresa Santos

Photo: Flickr

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Women’s Political Participation in Lebanon


Lebanon is known around the Middle East and the region of North Africa (MENA) as one of the leaders in progressive values. The country has prided itself on ensuring equal rights for women and men in its national constitution. Despite many accomplishments, women’s political participation in Lebanon remains one of the lowest percentages in the MENA region. What is happening in Lebanon that is keeping women out of politics?

Traditional Lack of Female Participation in Politics

In 1953, women in Lebanon were granted the right to vote and participate in politics. Since then, only 17 women have held positions in politics. As of December 2016, less than three percent of government seats have been held by women.

In 2005, women’s participation in politics reached its peak. Of the 128 seats in parliament, six women held parliamentary positions. This was the highest amount of women holding seats in parliament at the same time in the nation’s history. Today, only one woman holds a parliamentary position.

Changing Laws, Unchanging Culture

Under Article 7 of the Lebanese constitution, gender equality is guaranteed, but personal status laws are not. Instead, personal status laws are in the hands of religious, who are not under the jurisdiction of the government, and therefore, gender equality laws do not apply to them. This type of inequality flows into households, where under family codes and citizen laws, women are still owned by their husband and fathers. This type of second-class citizen culture affects women’s political participation in Lebanon. Many women are unable to take action due to their financial and marital status.

Women in Lebanon who vote do so for their families and not for their preferred candidates. Some women are not allowed to vote for candidates outside of their kinship. Still, women’s political participation in Lebanon is important. Women have the ability to sway votes in their constituencies, but often do not use the full extent of their power. The average amount of women who actually wield their vote is about 16 percent. Out of the 18 constituencies, only five of them see participation from women, between 16 to 50 percent.

Reform on the Horizon

The women’s quota within the Lebanese government has become key for women’s political participation in Lebanon. According to hivos.com, the women’s quota can be used, “either in the form of reserved seats in parliament, or (preferably) obliging party or electoral lists to contain a certain percentage of women candidates.”

Although this mandate was enforced, women still rely on NGOs to voice their political stances within the government. In Lebanon, there are 18 political parties, but seven dominate. Practically all of these groups are led by males, and most parties led by females have turned into NGOs, which have a network of women working together in order to affect change.

Until women’s voices are allowed to be amplified and actually heard, women will continue fighting.

– Maria Rodriguez

Photo: Flickr

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Addressing Women’s Health: The AIDS Epidemic


The global AIDS epidemic continues to threaten women’s health. There has been significant worldwide progress in combating this outbreak, as evidenced by a U.N. report showing a 33 percent global reduction in newly diagnosed HIV infections from 2001 to 2012. However, development has been disproportionate for women, especially in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.

As the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV and AIDS reports, adolescent girls accounted for 64 percent of new HIV infections among youth globally in 2013. In addition, sub-Saharan Africa houses 80 percent of young women with HIV worldwide. Those aged 15 to 24 are nearly twice as likely to contract AIDS compared to their male counterparts.

Such statistics have a number of causes. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with HIV if they have experienced physical or sexual abuse, especially through relationships that involve extramarital sex or little-to-no contraceptive use. Social norms, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, also impose barriers, as men have more dominance over women in relationships.

Lack of education, specifically sex education, also plays a role in women’s disproportionate diagnosis of HIV. A report by the U.N. demonstrated that out of 32 countries, “Women who had some level of secondary education were five times more likely than non-literate women to have knowledge of HIV.”

The probable leading cause of the AIDS epidemic affecting women comes from a lack of health services. Those who have insufficient access to HIV and reproductive health care treatments and support are less likely to monitor their health and thereby reduce infection. This is the case in many African regions. Laws also introduce obstacles; for example, in 2014, nine countries reported regulations that inhibit girls from obtaining HIV-related services.

Executive Director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibe, confirms: “This epidemic, unfortunately, remains an epidemic of women.” Fortunately, however, a number of organizations have made motions to counter the problem, beginning with UNAIDS itself. In 2015, it introduced a global initiative of reducing HIV infections to about half a million per year by 2020. This plan involves reducing new infections among women by a factor of 75 percent.

As the Human Rights Watch notes, such can be accomplished through legal reform, the implementation of health awareness programs, mandatory education measures and assistance from international NGOs. In order to combat the AIDS epidemic and its effect on women, serious action must continue worldwide.

– Genevieve T. DeLorenzo

Photo: Flickr