In India, 27 percent of women aged 20-49 were married before they were 15 years old. Credit: Jaideep Hardikar/IPS
NEW DELHI, Aug 20 2014 (IPS) – Basanti Rani*, a 33-year-old farmers’ wife from the northern Indian state of Haryana, recently withdrew her 15-year-old daughter Paru from school in order to marry her off to a 40-year-old man.
“In an increasingly insecure social milieu, where rape and sexual abuse have become so common, marrying off my daughter was a wise move,” she told IPS.
“Who would’ve married her had she been abused or raped? Now, at least, her husband can look after her.”
Such a mindset, widespread across this …
In this column, Mario Lubetkin, Director of Corporate Communications at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), writes that the U.N. organisation’s annual report on the state of food insecurity released on Sep. 16 attracted great media attention but lacked analytical coverage. Publication of statistics on hunger, he says, should not be seen as a single event but can only be understood as part a process of change with multiple, public and private stakeholders.
ROME, Oct 3 2014 (IPS) – It is common belief that good news is less interesting for the general public than bad news; this is why media coverage tends to focus on catastrophic events and disasters, both natural and man-made.
Fortunately, there are some exceptions: a report launched by the Food and Agricul…
Gender inequalities drive the disproportionate rate of HIV infection among young South African women aged 15 to 24. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 1 2014 (IPS) – When she found out that she had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Thabisile Mkhize (not her real name) was scared.
She knew little about the virus that had been living in her body since birth and did not know whom to ask. Her mother had just died and she lived with her grandmother in rural KwaZulu Natal, where the HIV prevalence is the , at 17 percent.
Today, at the age of 16, Mkhize is an enthusiastic peer educator at her school, discussing HIV prevention, safe sex and sexua…
Women in India’s mental health institutions often face systematic abuse that includes detention, neglect and violence. Credit: Shazia Yousuf/IPS
MUMBAI, Jan 30 2015 (IPS) – Following the birth of her third child, Delhi-based entrepreneur Smita* found herself feeling “disconnected and depressed”, often for days at a stretch. “Much later I was told it was severe post-partum depression but at the time it wasn’t properly diagnosed,” she told IPS.
“My marriage was in trouble and after my symptoms showed no signs of going away, my husband was keen on a divorce, which I was resisting.”
“The nurses were unkind and cruel. I remember one…
Serra Sippel is President of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)
WASHINGTON, Mar 18 2015 (IPS) – Earlier this month, President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech marking the 50th Anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and the bloody attack on civil rights marchers by police.
President Obama issued what was tantamount to a call to action for Americans to speak out for what is right. He stated: Loving this country requires more than singing its praises or avoiding uncomfortable truths. It requires the occasional disruption, the willingness to speak out for what s right and shake up the status quo.
Sandra Siagian interviews BABATUNDE OSOTIMEHIN, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla and UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin discussed how Indonesia could harness its demographic dividend on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Jakarta on Apr. 20. Credit: Courtesy of UNFPA Indonesia.
JAKARATA, May 2 2015 (IPS) – In a populous archipelago nation like Indonesia, where 250 million live spread across some 17,500 islands, speaking over 300 languages, the question of development is a tricky one.
A lower-middle-income country with a poverty rate of 11.4 percent – …
The northern town of Buka was the focus of attention when the newly elected third Autonomous Bougainville Government was inaugurated on Jun. 15. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
CANBERRA, Australia, Jun 24 2015 (IPS) – A referendum on independence within the next five years dominated campaigning in the recent general election held in Bougainville, an autonomous region of 300,000 people in the east of Papua New Guinea (PNG), which emerged from a decade-long civil war 15 years ago.
John Momis, a former Catholic priest who has been prominent in national politics for more than 40 years, was re-elected as president, acquiring 51,382 votes, well ahead…
Lakshmi Puri is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2015 (IPS) – If there is any idea and cause for which the United Nations has been an indispensable engine of progress globally it is the cause of ending all forms of “discrimination and violence against women and girls, ensuring the realization of their equal rights and advancing their political, economic and social empowerment.
Gender equality and the empowerment of women has been featured prominently in the history of the United Nations system since it…
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is the Coordinator for Economic and Social Development at the Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, and received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
ROME, Nov 26 2015 (IPS) – Food systems are increasingly challenged to ensure food security and balanced diets for all, around the world. Almost 800 million people are chronically hungry, while over two billion people suffer from “hidden hunger,” with one or more micronutrient deficiencies. Meanwhile, over two billion people are overweight, with a third of them clinically obese, and hence more vulnerable to non-communicable diseases.
Shova Rani, leader of Badhan organisation, discusses safe sex and its benefits to a group of commercial sex workers (CSWs). Credit: Naimul Haq
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Apr 21 2016 (IPS) – Radhika Banarjee, a 24 year-old CSW, listened carefully at an advocacy gathering in the heart of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.
Despite working long hours in the night, she and her fellow colleagues chose to attend a meeting in the afternoon because the education programme on prevention of HIV/AIDS meant a lot to them.
“As a sex worker, I am very vulnerable to transmitting the HIV virus. I have no idea if my ‘clients’ are safe from it but I definitely wish…