Stories: Women
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Family Planning Is Her Problem
The other day, I was in the queue at a ticket counter of a suburban station in Mumbai. Behind me, two men nattered on about whether they should take a train or a cab. They were middle aged, middle class, nothing unremarkable, though a bit loud. As we reached the counter, a woman sitting on the ground near it, with...
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Mobile Friends for Healthy Mothers
Across 250 villages in Maharashtra, pregnant women are feeling a little less confused. They have someone telling them how to take care of themselves this week. A friend, if you like. They receive this counsel through voice messages on the mobile phone. They receive this counsel where they wish to receive it, even in the privacy of their homes. This is...
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Emerging Voices: Hagit Bachrach on Gender Relations and Child Survival in India
Nearly one in every four children who die before the age of five dies in India. Gender roles play an important role in Indian culture and have a profound impact on child survival in a country where the child mortality rate is the highest in the world. These are a few observations from my visit to the Natwar...
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Cycles of Abuse: Kamala Breaks Through, Part Two
This is the second in a three-part series on cycles of abuse. Read Part 1 and Part 3. Kamala* and her husband moved to Chennai after marriage. For her, it was a whole new world—though of a very different hue from the Disney movie song. With her family far away in Mumbai, Kamala was grappling with new physical and...
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In Conversation with Flaurantin Marie Enise
Jalouzi is a hillside neighborhood of about 200,000 people overlooking lower Petion-Ville. It is accessible from two roads, one at the top and one below. The view from the top is stunning. From here, you can see Port-au-Prince looking east to the sea and north to the mountains. The only way to travel is by foot through...
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“Nothing For Us, Without Us”: Women Rise in Afghanistan, Malawi, Nepal, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana
From countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Ghana, Nepal and Zimbabwe, participants faced a similar challenge – how to overcome the exclusion of women from political and public life. Despite their different contexts, cultures and political systems, the women highlighted some common problems and common solutions. Women’s voices must be heard from every corner and at every level....
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Cycles of Abuse: Kamala Breaks Through
This is the first in a three-part series on cycles of abuse. Read Part 2 and Part 3. Across the white laminated table, Kamala* smiles. There is a mix of impatience, anxiety and eagerness in her face and body language. Kamala is here to tell me the story of how she found herself in a violent marriage, the trajectory...
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Testimony and Development: Think Globally, Act Locally, Think Locally, Act Globally
I recently covered Untold Stories, a major exhibition of photographs of global urban refugees and a showcase of their testimonies, produced by the International Rescue Committee and featuring images taken by photographer Andrew O’Connell. Since the exhibition closed I’ve been thinking about the placing of these images, in the sleek, double-plus height, busy spaces of...
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Decoding Malnutrition
How is it that 46 per cent of children are stunted in Dharavi, one of the more organised slums in a city like Mumbai which also has one of the richest people in the world?” Nobody had answers to the question raised by writer and journalist Kalpana Sharma at a discussion organised by the International Reporting Project (www.internationalreportingproject.org)....
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No Woman Should Lose Her Life, Giving Life
Mrs. Bello has been bleeding since giving birth. Let’s go back to the beginning. A true-life story is told about a pregnant woman (whom I’ll refer to as Mrs. Bello) who did not realize her pregnancy had gone past nine months. It was not until her neighbour offered to introduce her to a local...