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Three women, three stories: Picking up the pieces of lives broken by obstetric fistula
Pemba was called “ndoki,” or “witch,” by her community, including her father and siblings. Sojina felt like a prisoner in the room she was banished to, forbidden to step outside even to worship. Jasmila’s career as an…
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5 things you might not know about obstetric fistula
First things first, what is obstetric fistula? What it is: Obstetric fistula is a traumatic childbirth injury that robs a woman or girl of her health, rights and dignity. It is a hole between the birth canal and bladder…
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Family health houses save lives, employ women, in rural Afghanistan
Five years ago, midwife Laila Amini watched a girl die in childbirth from causes that were entirely preventable. That day, Ms. Amini resolved that no other women or girls in her community would die when they still had a…
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Women and girls’ rights are an unseen casualty of the crisis in Syria
“Life quickly became an open-air prison after the war,” a young woman from Aleppo told UNFPA. “We were instructed not to leave our houses for fear of harrassment, rape and kidnap. I was told that child marriage was my…
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Ukraine crisis rooms, created for survivors of domestic violence, now house survivors of war
They are called “crisis rooms”: temporary accommodation for women and their children, with a kitchen, furniture, utensils and food, operated by local social welfare centres. This network of safe spaces was created to…
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8 myths about unintended pregnancy debunked
Half. That is the alarmingly high proportion of pregnancies that girls and women do not deliberately choose.
The neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy is the subject of UNFPA’s flagship 2022 State of…
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UNFPA and WFP join forces to meet soaring reproductive health and nutrition needs in southern Madagascar
Just weeks away from delivering her fifth child, Homoroe Haova, 33, looked down at her stomach and smiled, reassured she could give birth safely as well as feed her children in the coming weeks.
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Empowering and investing in midwives could save millions of lives each year
“My great-grandmother was a midwife,” said Erika Martinez, 23. “She was one of my biggest inspirations.”
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5 things to know about motherhood
Celebrated around the world throughout the year, Mother’s Day is exactly that: celebratory. But for some women, motherhood can be fraught. Women have become mothers below ground in wartime (Ukraine), under bridges after…
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