Thalif Deen

STOCKHOLM, Sep 6 2010 (IPS) – A major weeklong international water conference opened in the Swedish capital Monday with an ominous warning: time is running out faster than fresh water.

Anders Berntell of SIWI speaks at the opening session of World Water Week. Credit: worldwaterweek

If the massive and complex challenges facing one of the world s most finite natural resources are not resolved soon, the future looks grimly devastating: scarcities, pollution, droughts…

NAIROBI, Sep 28 2010 (IPS) – The number of pregnant women being tested for HIV and accessing treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa has shown significant progress – indicating that virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of the virus by 2015 is possible.
According to a new report Towards Universal Access, the proportion of pregnant women in Sub-Saharan Africa who received an HIV test increased from 43 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009. The report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS assessed HIV/AIDS progress in 144 low- and middle-income countries.

It found an estimated 24 percent of the approximately 125 million pregnant women in these countries received an HIV t…

Aprille Muscara and Daniela Estrada*

NEW YORK/SANTIAGO, Oct 22 2010 (IPS) – When Francisca arrived at the historic Curicó Hospital a staple in the Chilean central valley for nearly one and a half centuries for the birth of her first child, she didn t know it would be her only one.
I was in the recovery room at the hospital of Curicó when [the nurse] entered and, after asking me how I was feeling, told me that I was sterilised and that I would not be able to have any more children, she recalls in a joint report by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and the Chilean NGO Vivo Positivo released Thursday.

It was 2002. Francisca (not her real name) was 20 years old and she and her husband foresaw a future in which their visit to the maternity ward wou…

Collins Mtika

GEZAMGOMO, Malawi , Nov 23 2010 (IPS) – Cecilia Tomoka s birthing centre stood unused for three years before the 2009 earthquake flattened it. Now she s rebuilding the house and her practice as Malawi s government lifts a ban on traditional birth attendants.
Tomoka lives in Gezamgomo village, about a kilometre outside Malawi s third largest city, Mzuzu. She started assisting with births in 1989, after her grandmother renowned for communing with the spirits told her it was her calling.

United Nations agencies project Malawi s maternal mortality rate is presently 510 deaths per 100,000 live births; down from the 2005 estimate of over 1,100 per 100,000. In 2007, traditional birth attendants were banned in an effort to push more women to give birth with qu…

Ignatius Banda

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jan 5 2011 (IPS) – Teenage commercial sex workers are finding themselves at the centre of the HIV/AIDS storm amid concerns of widespread lack of condom use and a spike in the number of infections among this demographic, despite the country s continuing HIV/AIDS campaigns, which health authorities say has seen a drop in prevalence in the past few years.
Young girls have become a permanent feature of night life here, and with this year s economic turn around, the festive season saw many cashing in on the free spending of those with disposable income.

Teenage commercial sex workers have discovered a boom in the sector and frequent city night clubs but clients, patrons and barmen who spoke to IPS in separate interviews report that there …

Andrea Lunt

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 23 2011 (IPS) – In an era of mass consumption in the West, the developing world is entering its second major hunger crisis in three years, with new figures from the World Bank showing food price hikes have forced 44 million people into economic hardship since last June.
More than one billion people, a sixth of the world s population, now face chronic hunger and the situation is likely to worsen this year, with experts such as David Nabarro, coordinator of the U.N. Secretary-General s High- Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, warning food prices are on an upward trend .

Somewhere in the region of two billion households are earning less than two dollars per day and spending somewhere around three quarters of their income…

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 17 2011 (IPS) – Argentina has begun the process of closing down psychiatric hospitals and integrating mentally ill people into the community, like its South American neighbours Brazil and Chile.
Human rights organisations, mental health professionals and patients relatives pushed for a new mental health act, which was finally unanimously approved by the Argentine Congress in late November.

The law is in line with the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Argentina in 2008. But all the parties involved admit that enforcing it will be a slow process.

The law is simply a milestone along the way; implementing it will take time, national director of mental health Yago d…

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Apr 15 2011 (IPS) – Since the horrific Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated her coastal town of Minato, in Ishinomaki city, Masami Endo s three-year-old daughter has been crying and clinging to her every night.
My daughter, Sakura, has never cried in fear of darkness till this disaster. She is completely different to the rather cheerful but also kind of stoic child she was before, Endo, a single mother, told IPS.

Endo is very worried about her child. The two of watched the tsunami swarm into their town and through the first floor of their house, destroying the structure badly. Ishinomaki is located in Miyagi- prefecture, about 330 kilometres north of Tokyo.

The story of Sakura is just one example of the thousands of tales o…

PARIS, May 18 2011 (IPS) – Ahead of this month s G8 summit in France, parliamentarians from 35 countries have issued a strong call for leaders of the world s major economies to focus on the role of women and girls in development.
We wish to draw the world s attention to two aspects of human rights that are the most neglected – the situation facing girls and adolescent women and the challenges posed by global population dynamics at present, said a resolution issued at the end of the Global Parliamentarians Summit held at France s National Assembly on Monday and Tuesday.

France s minister for Cooperation, Henri de Raincourt, told IPS that discussions of the issues affecting women and girls would form a real part of the G8 meeting.

France insists on this, he said. …

WASHINGTON, Jun 15 2011 (IPS) – The first-ever official meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from G20 countries, to be held in Paris Jun. 22-23, presents an extraordinary opportunity. Tasked with developing an action plan to address price volatility in food and agricultural markets and its impact on the poor, the ministers are uniquely positioned to not only tackle the immediate price volatility problems, but also to take on a more fundamental and long-term challenge extreme poverty and hunger.
As experts in agriculture, the ministers no doubt know what extensive research confirms: Investing in agriculture and rural development, with a focus on smallholder farmers, is the best bet for achieving global food security, alleviating poverty, and improving human wellbeing in developing co…