GUWAHATI, India, Apr 23 2013 (IPS) – It is as if they have given up hope of ever seeing their girls again. They are an Adivasi family from a remote village in Assam state in India, nestled in the Himalayan foothills. The picturesque surroundings belie the hollowness they feel within.
Three of their four daughters have been missing for the last five years.
“Poor and ignorant, the parents simply don’t know where their girls have gone,” says Sunita Changkakati, executive director of the Assam Centre for Rural Development, an NGO in Guwahati.
The Adivasis, an aboriginal tribal people whose ancestors the British had recruited from central India to work in the tea plantations of Assam, are particularly vulnerable to the menace of human trafficking, though women f…
ROME, Jun 21 2013 (IPS) – The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which works to end malnutrition among more than two billion people worldwide, is expressing strong support for enriching the micronutrient content of plants.
Cassava is a staple crop in Africa. The new variety promoted by CGIAR is more nutritious, contaning higher amounts of vitamin A, zinc, or iron. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
In technical terms, it is called biofortification: a nutrition-specific intervention designed to enhance t…
Ahmad Alhendawi, the U.N. secretary general’s special envoy on youth, speaks with participants in the programme Jóvenes en Red (Youth Net) from Manga, a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Montevideo. Credit: David Puig/UNFPA
MONTEVIDEO, Aug 13 2013 (IPS) – Shortcomings in the educational system in Latin America and the Caribbean fuel inequalities that remain hurdles to access to the labour market and safe sex for a large part of the region’s youth.
Around half of the region’s sexually active youngsters have never used any form of birth control, and an estimated 20 percent of children in the region were born to mothers between the ages of 10…
Protesters outside the offices of agriculture giant Monsanto who were rallying as part of a “national day of solidarity.” Credit: Daniel Lobo/cc by 2.0
SEATTLE, Washington, U.S., Oct 17 2013 (IPS) – The northwestern state of Washington could become the first in the U.S. to require labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on foods and food packages, after a similar measure in California failed last year.
Over 353,000 Washingtonians signed on to a petition creating Initiative 522, which will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot statewide. It notes that such labeling is fast becoming the international norm.”The ‘no’ side has corporations that are all bankrolling their …
Lack of awareness among youth on risks of HIV infections needs to be addressed quickly to stem the disease from spreading, the National HIV Strategic Plan Sri Lanka 2013–2017 has warned. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.
COLOMBO, Feb 2 2014 (IPS) – Four thousand HIV infections in a population of 20 million should not be a difficult figure to manage. But experts in Sri Lanka say social customs and strict laws are hindering them from carrying out prevention and awareness campaigns among high-risk groups.
Despite impressively low national infection rates, there are signs that the spread of HIV which can lead to AIDS has increased among these groups, most of which face os…
This is the first in a three-part series on youth and AIDS in Africa
Afraid of losing playmates, children hide their HIV positive status from their peers. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
BULAWAYO, Apr 3 2014 (IPS) – Three years ago, Robert Ngwenya* and his father got into a heated argument over medication. Ngwenya, then aged 15, refused to continue swallowing the nausea-provoking pills he had been taking since he was 12 years old, and flushed them down the toilet.
During the argument, Ngwenya understood he had been born HIV positive, had been taking antiretrovirals (ARV) and not vitamins and anti-allergenics, and that his father too lived with the virus and the gu…
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo Courtesy of UN Women
UNITED NATIONS, May 19 2014 (IPS) – Nearly 20 years ago, the world came together in Beijing for the Fourth World Conference on Women. There, 189 governments adopted a visionary roadmap for gender equality: the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
More than 17,000 delegates and 30,000 activists pictured a world where women and girls had equal rights, freedom and opportunity in every sphere of life.We must seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to position gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment firmly at the centre of the global agenda.
While much progress has been made i…
Abusers are often family members, making victims reluctant to report the violence. Credit: Boris Bartels/cc by 2.0
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2014 (IPS) – A veteran women s rights activist, Patricia Brownell was still taken aback by the prevalence of abuse against older women she discovered during dozens of conversations she and her colleagues had with victims.
They found that for every one official report of abuse made by agencies in New York State, there are 23 self-reports, with the abusers ranging from husbands, sons, daughters and other relatives to complete strangers.“In many cases, the victims did not want to talk about it. They felt guilty. They felt it was th…
Increasing levels of violence across India due to ethnic tensions and armed insurgencies are taking their toll on women and cutting off access to crucial reproductive health services. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
BASTAR, India, Sep 26 2014 (IPS) – Twenty-five-year-old Khemwanti Pradhan is a ‘Mitanin’ – a trained and accredited community health worker – based in the Nagarbeda village of the Bastar region in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
Since 2007, Pradhan has been informing local women about government health schemes and urging them to deliver their babies at a hospital instead of in their own homes.
Ironically, when Pradhan gave birth to her …
Tim Brewer is a Policy Analyst at WaterAid, a UK-based international charity.
A woman from Pune, Timor-Leste, collects water for her home. Credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret
LONDON, Nov 24 2014 (IPS) – The Ebola crisis has thrown into sharp relief the issue of water, sanitation and hygiene in treating and caring for the sick. Dying patients are being taken to hospitals which never had enough water to maintain hygiene, and the epidemic has pushed the system to the breaking point.
Last week’s World Health Organisation report produced by UN Water, the (GLAAS), has provided a sobering picture of water and sanitation services so necessary to healthcare system…