Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of News Deeply’s Women & Girls Hub. While we paused regular publication of the site on January 22, 2018, and transitioned our coverage to Women’s Advancement Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Arctic. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors 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].
Hannah McNeish is a freelance journalist based in East Africa who focuses on human rights stories. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahMcNeish.
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Dowry culture and a fixation on reproduction have contributed to violence towards women in African homes. But with legal reform and awareness campaigns on the rise, activists like Kenya’s Saida Ali are optimistic about changing attitudes.
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.
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.
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.
The team at Umra Omar’s charity Safari Doctors travel for days by sailboat and motorbike to bring medication and maternal health services to parts of the Kenyan coast that have been cut off by conflict.
As desertification claims more of Sudan’s once fertile land, women in farming communities struggle to keep their families healthy while constantly fighting the encroaching sand dunes.
After Sitawa Wafula was diagnosed with epilepsy and bipolar disorder, she discovered that having a mental illness in Kenya meant struggling alone. So when her blog won her a $25,000 prize, she used the money to launch the country’s first free mental health hotline.
South Sudan’s ongoing violence and battered economy are causing large numbers of girls to drop out of school. Now a British-funded education program is hoping to help 200,000 girls continue their education by giving them money for fees and school supplies.
Based in Khartoum, the Superwoman Network brings together five civil society organizations to provide support, legal aid and training to help women who were once the victims of domestic violence and FGM.
In Sudan, girls and young women who have children are often abandoned by their families and stigmatized in their communities. A shelter in Khartoum gives these mothers a home and works to help them build their families.
In a part of South Sudan where a girl’s worth is measured in how many cows her family can get for her dowry, one school is teaching girls how to stand up for their rights.
Josephine Kulea has saved over 1,000 girls in Kenya from forced marriage and the female genital mutilation that usually precedes it. Her work has earned praise from Barack Obama, but she says politicians back home won’t support her work in case it loses them votes.
When Marguerite Barankitse started taking in children who had been orphaned by Burundi’s civil war, people called her crazy. But after helping more than 30,000 kids, she still dreams of raising a generation that can learn to live in peace.
More than 800 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. By bringing ultrasounds to Democratic Republic of Congo’s rural communities, the See Your Baby project helps women get treatment before their conditions turn fatal.
In Kenya, both the privileged and the poor struggle to pay for breast cancer treatment. As part of our series “The Shifting Burden,” we look at the slow progress toward accessible care in a country where a mammogram costs more than an average month’s salary.
Reports of assault and gang rape of foreign aid workers by soldiers in South Sudan’s capital have caught the world’s attention. Now Priyanka Motaparthy, emergencies researcher for Human Rights Watch, is working to make sure that outrage translates into concrete action.
A government rollout of antiretroviral treatment PrEP puts the power of prevention into women’s hands in a country once called the ‘world’s rape capital.’ One of the first groups to get the free pills is also one of the most vulnerable: prostitutes.
In an age where discussion about AIDS and HIV is dominated by science and statistics, three women are using art to encourage people to engage more with their own relationship to sex, STDs and stigma.
As conflict rages in Burundi, reports are mounting of women being raped as punishment for their political affiliations. Women & Girls Hub spoke with women who had fled to refugee camps in Tanzania, many left with nothing but the memory of their ordeal.
For young Mozambicans trying to avoid contracting HIV, it’s difficult to separate rumor from fact. The Coalizao youth center in Maputo gives out answers and advice via SMS, in the hope that education is the key to curbing the virus’ spread.
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