Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Water Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on November 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on water resilience. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
As HIV infection rates continue to rise among young women in sub-Saharan Africa, a new clinical trial for an HIV vaccine could hold the promise of a reliable solution for stopping the spread of the disease.
The story of one family planning clinic in Nairobi shows how President Trump’s decision to cut U.S. funding to any organization that so much as discusses abortion with its patients could threaten everything from HIV prevention to GBV counseling.
Forced to live with their employers and often subjected to emotional abuse or worse, foreign domestic workers in Singapore can feel trapped. But a nonprofit shelter is working to help these women escape their situations and find new work where they are treated with dignity.
Once criticized by feminists for using crude language and singing about sex, Brazil’s original female funk artists are now considered trailblazers, inspiring a new generation with their songs about the everyday struggles of women living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro.
More than 70,000 women in Bangladesh suffer from a treatable condition that often leads to ostracization and poverty. The story of one Bangladeshi woman’s freedom from fistula shows the challenges of eradicating a health problem that can destroy lives.
Fleeing the Syrian conflict, Muna Darweesh sought refuge in Brazil using a holiday visa. As Refugees Deeply reports, after a tough start, the refugee from Latakia is becoming a culinary star in her adopted country and an example for others.
In parts of Kenya, female fishmongers are forced to have sex with fishermen before they can buy fish to take to market. As the practice of “jaboya” contributes to the region’s high HIV rates, locals are working to convince communities to find other ways to make money.
Cervical cancer kills more women in Zimbabwe than any other type of cancer. But studies show that, due to a combination of low resources and social stigma, very few women are being regularly tested or even know where to go to get screened.
A joint initiative by U.N. Women and UNESCO aims to highlight the problem of gender-based violence in and around schools, as well as provide teachers and students tools for tackling the issue. The first step, says UNESCO’s Joanna Herat, is to face up to the challenge.
Desperate decisions on the road to refuge left a young Afghan mother disabled, bereaved and stranded. Her story, as told to Refugees Deeply, illustrates the appalling risks Afghan refugees are taking in the face of rising European asylum rejections and deportations.
When Kashmiri women lose their husbands to the ongoing conflict, their grief is often compounded by discrimination, ostracism and poverty, in a region where a woman’s social status is tied to that of the man she married.
Even as Myanmar slowly adapts to democracy, the government shows little interest in furthering women’s rights, leaving progress to pioneering women working at a community level, says Jenny Hedström, gender adviser for Fortify Rights.
With her Food4School program, educator Marilyn Mosely Gordanier hopes that giving families money to buy food will allow them to pay for their daughters’ education and keep them from turning to child marriage to make ends meet.
As part of our series on women in Myanmar, we look at an innovative charity that helps women talk about sex and sexuality, challenging traditional concepts of female subservience and demureness.
Traumatized by memories of abuse she suffered when she was nine years old, Brazilian Olympic swimmer Joanna Maranhão became afraid of the water. Now back in the pool, she helps run an NGO to protect children from sexual violence.
As millions of Americans took to the streets on Saturday, people gathered all over the world to highlight women’s issues in their countries, too. In Kenya, over 700 people came together to call for land rights for women and an end to discrimination and FGM.
For women in much of the developing world, a lack of autonomy and privacy are just a couple of obstacles to accessing birth control. A small, self-injectable contraceptive trialed in Uganda could empower more women to make their own decisions regarding childbirth.
A new nonprofit initiative in a Turkish border town is finding that the simple act of teaching Syrian refugee women the local language can help them find jobs, integrate into their communities and empower their families.
After witnessing the tragedies of civil war in El Salvador, Sister Anne Marie Gardiner made it her mission to support female entrepreneurs as they become self-sustaining, challenge traditional gender roles and inspire their children to give something back to their communities.
As part of our “Untold Stories” series, we meet Makui Lainyiu, who regrets not having done more to pass on her community’s traditions to the younger generation. Her song is a rare glimpse of a world all but lost in the remote hills between India and Myanmar.
As Mozambique suffers through southern Africa’s worst drought in 35 years, activists say the pressure on families to find food and water is starting to reverse the gender equality gains that have been made in the country.
An amendment that would give custody of children to their father if their mother remarries has sparked outrage among Egyptian women and their advocates, who claim it highlights systemic gender biases in family laws.
During El Salvador’s decade-long civil war, Maria Lidia Guardado was cooking for guerrilla forces. Fifteen years later, she was educating herself so that she could lead a nonviolent campaign to protect local farmland from mining companies.
Driven by poverty and lack of education, hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are forced to take loans from brick kiln owners and spend a lifetime working off what they owe. The debt then usually passes on to their children, even to girls as young as five years old.
The Ludu Library is a treasure trove in a nation still reeling from the oppression of army rule. Built to house books and manuscripts accumulated over the lifetimes of Myanmar’s most famous literary couple, it is one of the very few modern libraries in the country.
Once known as a refugee-friendly nation, Kenya is becoming more resistant to taking in people who have been forced to flee their homes. That means added challenges for the nonprofit Heshima and the refugee girls it supports, says executive director Alisa Roadcup.
A portrait of how Syria’s war has carved homes into fighting factions, told through the story of Um Mahmoud, a Damascus mother whose three sons ended up on opposing sides of the battle lines.
Despite a childhood spent fleeing the fighting in southern Sudan, Akuja de Garang was determined to keep up with her studies. Now her work to help girls in South Sudan stay in education has earned her royal recognition.
Tired of being told to stay away from public spaces for their own good, groups of women in India and Pakistan are loitering in protest, arguing that allowing women to hang out and do nothing can make cities safer.
As Zimbabwe tries to curb its high levels of gender-based violence, advocates say that services and systems aimed at helping abuse victims are failing to recognize the specific needs of women and girls with disabilities.
As part of our “Untold Stories” series, we meet some of the women fighting against Myanmar’s ingrained gender discrimination by competing in Lethwei, a ferocious, no-holds-barred style of kickboxing.
Reports of HIV-positive women who have been coerced, forced or tricked into being sterilized reveal how widespread this practice is in Africa, but human rights activists say governments are doing little to stop it.
The next part in our “Untold Stories” series features Mya Thet Mu, who lived as an openly gay woman in exile in Thailand for 19 years, but faced public abuse when she returned to Myanmar. Now she brings together young people to challenge discrimination.
Barely able to feed themselves and their families, South Sudanese women in refugee camps are swapping their rations for ingredients to make siko, a highly alcoholic spirit. But selling it means they have to endure harassment and verbal abuse from their customers.
This year, we’ll dig deeper into the stories we brought you in 2016 while exploring the issues that don’t get the attention they deserve – and we will continue to champion people and organizations who work for the good of women and girls at home and around the world.
The conviction of a Malawian man who slept with underage girls as part of “sexual cleansing” rituals signals that the custom may not be tolerated. But his two-year sentence has activists questioning how strong the justice system’s resolve is for ending the practice.
There is a common misconception among lesbians and health practitioners in Africa that women who have sex with each other are immune to sexually transmitted diseases. Tiffany Mugo is on a mission to change that.
Farah is a young woman living in Syria’s capital city, where she faces the daily struggles of maintaining a normal social and professional life in a country being ripped apart by war.
In the second installment of the series “Untold Stories,” we meet a young feminist from Myanmar’s Kayan ethnic group who wanted to set up a women’s organization. But first she had to escape the military junta, crossing the border to Thailand in the dead of night.
In December 2015, the Chinese government passed the country’s landmark first bill against domestic violence. But one year on, campaigners warn that not enough people know about it, and victims remain uncompensated.
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