Stories: Women
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AIDS: How South Africa Is Beating the Epidemic
When Olga Thimbela first took in the kids, things were rosy. They were young. So was she, for that matter. She had two children of her own, and six more she was determined to raise after their mothers – one a sister and one an aunt of hers – died of AIDS, leaving the children orphaned. Olga cleaned houses...
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On Assam’s River Islands, Family Planning Clashes Against Religious Tradition
On the banks of the Brahmaputra River, off the coast of Dhubri town in the northeastern state of Assam, lie a few hundred villages that seem stuck in time, difficult to reach from the mainland and undeveloped for decades. These “char,” the name given to the more than 2,000 riverbank villages and river islands in Assam, are home...
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Climbing Mount Canaan With a Mobile Clinic
On Sunday, a dream came true. Organized by Rea Dol, women from Le Phare in Jalouzi and SOPUDEP, including volunteer nurses, came together to provide the women of Canaan with their first mobile clinic. One hillside community came to support women from another hillside community, and together they climbed Mount Canaan. As Jacques Roumain puts it in Masters of the...
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Evictions, Hunger, Continued Persecutions, and One Victory
Last Wednesday, agents of the state and local police forcefully evicted residents of Camp Bristou in Peguy Ville. Bristou is overlooked by Mojub school, which is part of SOPUDEP community, and many of the women, men and children who attend the school and literacy classes lived in the camp and the surrounding area. In nearby Delmas, the residents at...
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Mistakes Plus Negligence Equals Death
Recently, I passed through the high-security zones of Petion-Ville and Delmas on my way to Cité Soleil, where policing is limited to the neighborhood parameters. It’s very possible I was missing something and the police were hiding at the ready; the tap tap driver complained that he did not like coming to Cité Soleil because there...
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Women, War and Peace
Five years ago, during the 2008 elections, Zimbabwean women were punished for claiming their right to have a say in the future of their country. Their move towards fair involvement in the political process as activists, advocates, interested citizens and voters were opposed by perpetrators' use of rape and other forms of extreme violence including beating, torture and murder....
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Listening Now
When Lalita* was raped by her 18-year-old nephew, she did not know that filing a case would have dramatic social consequences. The morning after the attack, Lalita went to Rajawadi Hospital, a government-run hospital in Mumbai. There she was examined and medicines were prescribed. She went straight to the police station to file a complaint. A day later, she was...
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Mining Reality
Rarely do we think about Goa except in terms of sun-sand-sea clichés but reality runs deeper. Mining, one of the state’s major industries, was banned by the Supreme Court in October 2010 after a non-profit organisation filed a petition about pollution levels. But mining companies are rejoicing because they may soon receive clearances to resume operations. This...
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Cycles of Abuse: Kamala Breaks Through, Part Three
This is the second in a three-part series on cycles of abuse. Read Part 1 and Part 2. The fact that Kamala* was pregnant did not deter her husband from frequent violence. Her first trimester was rough. She had severe morning sickness and could hardly get out of bed. He refused to do anything around the house and got...
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Deadly fire: illuminating disadvantage and killing more people than malaria annually
At first, I didn’t take the problem seriously. I was contacted by a colleague who works with international charities, asking me if I knew about the dangers of fire. They were obvious, I thought. But then she told me about the issue of smoke inhalation from poorly ventilated homes, writing, “the latter is a very under-reported issue...