Zofeen Ebrahim

HYDERABAD, India, Oct 31 2007 (IPS) – Sahinaz Khatun, who is preparing for her school finals in a village in West Bengal state, has for the last two years kept condoms (and birth control pills) at her home and thinks nothing of discussing subjects like menstruation hygiene and masturbation with other adolescents.
Khatun is among the 200 young people attending the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSH) demanding the right to sex education.

Talking about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is not going to make us errant or licentious, she said, adding that there are people in her community who still feel this is not the right thing for a young unmarried woman to be doing. In some ways they are right, she says. …

Dingaan Mithi

LILONGWE, Aug 6 2010 (IPS) – Diarrhoea causes more deaths than malaria and AIDS combined, yet while funding to fight the latter two have risen sharply, the same cannot be said of resources available for hygiene, sanitation and clean drinking water.

Esther Sakala outside the Skyloo toilet she constructed herself. Credit: Dingaan Mithi/IPS

The United Nations Children s Fund says 12,000 Malawian children die due to diarrhoea-related diseases every year.

In the densely-po…

Large numbers of people are bypassing immigration controls as they exit Venezuela. Credit: Tomer Urwicz

CÚCUTA, Colombia, Jun 13 2019 (IPS) – Not long ago, 15-year-old Nelsmar attended a middle-class school in central Venezuela. That was before her family was uprooted by the economic and humanitarian crisis in her country, which has pushed nearly 3.9 million persons to migrate or flee, according to of the Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela.

Nelsmar’s family made the move over a year ago. They walked for eight days, and spent the rest of the journey traveling by bus, before reaching the border with Colombia. When they arrived in the b…