Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, May 22 2009 (IPS) – In the last 13 months, 12 of Mexico s 32 states have approved amendments to their state constitutions defining a fertilised human egg as a person with a right to legal protection, and seven other state parliaments are taking steps in the same direction.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say it is a massive conservative reaction to a law decriminalising abortion up to 12 weeks gestation that went into force in the Mexican capital in April 2007.
The law was upheld in August 2008 by the Supreme Court, which ruled that it did not violate the Mexican constitution.
Behind the wave of reforms of state constitutions, according to critics, is a pact between the hierarchy of the Mexican Catholic Church and the leadersh…
Danielle Kurtzleben
WASHINGTON, Jun 16 2009 (IPS) – On Jun. 19, 2008, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1820, expressly addressing the problems of sexual violence in conflict situations. One year later, three experts in the field gathered to speak at the United States Institute of Peace to evaluate the implementation of 1820 and consider how it might better prevent this widespread crime.
The resolution marked a major step forward for the U.N. in addressing the problems of sexual violence in conflict zones. Anne-Marie Goetz, a chief advisor at the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), presents it as a groundbreaking resolution, linking sexual violence to broader peace and security concerns.
For the very first time, the U.N. Security Council recognises th…
Servaas van den Bosch
WINDHOEK, Jul 28 2009 (IPS) – While paediatric HIV remains a growing concern throughout Southern Africa, Namibian doctors have managed to put high numbers of babies on the life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment with the help of an early infant diagnosis (EID) programme based on dry blood sampling.
Since the launch of the EID programme in 2006, the number of HIV-infected newborns has dropped from 13 percent to two percent in Namibia, according to the national Ministry of Health.
These figures stand in sharp contrast with data from other African countries where many pregnant women are not diagnosed in time to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of the virus and only a few HIV-positive infants receive ARVs.
A 2009 study by the C…
Christi van der Westhuizen
CAPE TOWN, Aug 18 2009 (IPS) – A study on men having sex with men (MSM) in Malawi shows that, as elsewhere in the developing world, this vulnerable group is at greater risk of contracting HIV and AIDS than the general population. Moreover, their risk status is exacerbated as governments fail to target them for health services or information to stem HIV transmission.
Fanja Saholiarisoa
ANTANANARIVO, Sep 22 2009 (IPS) – Poverty has increased dramatically in Madagascar since January, when a national protest movement to end the regime of former president Marc Ravalomanana plunged the country into a socio-economic crisis. Since then, the number of child labourers has risen by a whopping 25 percent.
This teenage boy spends his days cutting stones in a quarry. Credit: Fanja Saholiarisoa/IPS
Two million children under the age of 15 go to work e…
Miriam Mannak
CAPE TOWN, Oct 5 2009 (IPS) – Maternal mortality rates in Africa constitute a monumental tragedy that requires urgent attention by African governments, health experts say.
More than 250,000 women die in childbirth in Afric…
Helen Clark
HANOI, Nov 11 2009 (IPS) – Vietnam will be one of five nations most affected by climate change. Worst-case scenarios see large parts of the low-lying and flood-prone Mekong Delta area, which produces much of the nation s rice crop, flooded.
A one-metre rise in sea level, predicted by 2100 will affect 10 percent of Vietnam s population (which now stands at 86 million) and 10 percent of GDP lost.
The government could not have been more right when it released these scenarios in August. Many international organisations concur.
As millions are displaced and the potential for vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to spread grows, health and human rights have become concerns closely related to climate change.
The links between health, h…
Vusumuzi Sifile
HARARE, Dec 2 2009 (IPS) – Martha* knows that her two young sisters and her need medicine. She also knows where to get it a clinic a few yards away from her home in Glen Norah, a high-density suburb in the Zimbabwean capital.
But she cannot get the life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). At 15, the law prevents her from doing so. She can only access the drugs in the company of an adult.
When my mother died in 2007, my aunt used to collect the drugs for us. She has since relocated to South Africa, and our other relatives say they are too embarrassed to be seen collecting the drugs, people will think they are now sick, said Martha.
Martha is among the estimated 158,798 children who are infected with HIV in Zimbabwe.
On November 24,…
Marguerite A. Suozzi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 2010 (IPS) – The enormous relief effort being mounted in Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled most of Port-au-Prince is facing a host of difficulties, including bottlenecks at the main airport and lack of heavy equipment to clear debris from streets and roads, aid officials say.
Port-au-Prince reside…
Pavol Stracansky
VIENNA, Feb 16 2010 (IPS) – With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure.
FGM an umbrella term for procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons has been condemned by governments, rights groups and health organisations across the world.
But while many European governments have introduced laws to ban the practice, campaigners have warned that far from dying out it continues in communities across the continent and those same governments must do more to stamp it out.
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