Suad Hamada

MANAMA, Aug 5 2009 (IPS) – Internet and mobile phones have spawned a new kind of marriage in the Gulf.

Bahraini Youth: gender segregated from childhood Credit: Bahrain Youth Society

Young couples are saying I do via email and text messages in the presence of two witnesses a practice, which like the older informal marriages of Mut a and Misyar, has no legal approval.

Muta a or pleasure in Arabic is a 14-centuries-old marriage custom that is common among Shiites. Misyar, which can be traced to so…

Mantoe Phakathi

MBABANE, Aug 28 2009 (IPS) – Swazi men have very little involvement in caring for newborns and mothers, yet they are critical partners in ensuring their well being.
Getting men involved in maternal and child health care is a serious challenge because of cultural dynamics and practices, said Rejoice Nkambule, the health department s deputy director of public health services.

For example, custom prohibits a Swazi man from physical contact with his newborn baby and its mother for a minimum of six months.

A major grant from the Japan Social Development Fund (JDSF) is now trying to change this. In July, the Japanese government awarded Swaziland $2.57 million over three years to improve maternal and child healthcare programmes in the country. The pr…

TOKYO, Oct 28 2009 (IPS) – One morning nine months ago, Kenji Hamada s colleagues were surprised to find him in their Tokyo office slumped over his desk. They thought he was sleeping, but when he did not wake up after two hours, they realised he was dead.

Tokyo’s Takao Mikoromo Spiritual Temple, where hundreds paid respects last month to…

Jessie Boylan

MCONDECE, Mozambique, Oct 21 2009 (IPS) – This is where we get our water from, says a villager on the footpath leading out of Mcondece. Branches and other debris float on the surface of the sluggish, murky brown creek.

The river at Mtwepe. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

Some baboons are drinking from one end of the pool and a few kids run down to chase them away, then squat by the water s edge, cup their hands and drink noisy mouthfuls.

The road leading to Mcondece, a small community tucked in amongst burnt-back bush and cassava fields in a r…

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jan 25 2010 (IPS) – It was as if she had only closed her eyes for a moment. When Wendy Iriepa came round after surgery over a year ago, she tried to get up as if nothing had happened, but a nurse gently pushed her back into bed. All done? she asked, and the nurse replied, Yes.
I wanted to look at myself, and I managed to feel how I was now. That thing I had had to live with for 33 years of my life was gone for good, Iriepa, a Cuban transsexual who had the sexual reassignment operation approved by the Public Health Ministry in 2008, told IPS.

When they finally removed my bandages, I went to the bathroom and I saw my reflection in a huge mirror. It was the happiest moment of my life. The 16 days I spent in hospital were neither an ordeal nor a fo…

LA PAZ, Mar 2 2010 (IPS) – A social programme in Bolivia that prevents the deaths of two mothers a day from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth is making headway despite administrative difficulties, and has the potential to cut the alarmingly high maternal mortality rate in this country by up to 80 percent in just five years.

Dr. Walter Soria examines a 10-month-old baby girl. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

In Bolivia, the risk of dying from causes related to pregnancy, childbirth or the postnatal period …

Mitch Moxley

BEIJING, Apr 5 2010 (IPS) – Shortly after Liu Yan s four-year-old son, Liu Yi, was bitten by a dog, he did what any responsible parent would do: took his child to the hospital for a vaccination. Two weeks later, after the fourth injection, Liu Yi became violently ill.
The next morning, on Aug. 27, 2008, the boy was taken to First People s Hospital in Yangquan city in central China s Shanxi province, where he was diagnosed with viral meningitis. Liu Yi s condition quickly deteriorated and he died later that afternoon.

Liu Yan blamed the rabies vaccination for his son s death, and according to a searing media report last month, he might not be alone.

My son was in good health before he got the rabies vaccine, Liu Yan told IPS. Nobody could clarify …

Wambi Michael

KAMPALA, May 6 2010 (IPS) – The Ugandan government s controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Bill has been amended after civil society organisations campaigned against provisions in the bill that may restrict access to generic medicines, which form the bulk of medicines used in the East African country.
Organisations such as Health Action International Africa (HAI Africa) and the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS Uganda) pointed out that the definition of counterfeit goods in the first version of the bill was so wide as to criminalise the production and importation of legitimate, effective generic medication.

IPS has obtained the latest version of the bill in which the definition of counterfeiting and counterfeit goods is restricted t…

Irwin Loy

PHNOM PENH, Jun 18 2010 (IPS) – For Chan Theary, a remote, mountainous stretch of land in western Cambodia encapsulates the uphill struggle this South-east Asian nation faces in reducing the alarming number of women who die during pregnancy.

Chan Theary, executive director of the Reproductive and Child Health Alliance, an NGO that supports a remote hea…

Esther Banales

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 2010 (IPS) – The fragile health system in the cash-strapped Democratic People s Republic of Korea (DPRK), long described as one of the world s most secretive countries, is on the verge of collapsing, Amnesty International (AI) warned Thursday.
In a report released here, the London-based human rights organisation said the situation was so dire that amputations and other major surgeries were being done without anaesthesia.

The hospitals and clinics in the country are rundown and operate with frequent power cuts and no heat and, even though free health care is guaranteed by law, doctors don t receive salaries and have to charge their patients, sometimes in cigarettes or clothes.

Medicines are supposed to be provided in hospit…