After reports of transgender people being refused treatment, a new centre offers specialised services – and respite from discrimination
Vivek Sharma has travelled 20km from his home to the congested eastern suburb of Mumbai for his HIV treatment. But the journey is no hardship for the 23-year-old student.
“My file was shifted to this clinic. I am so happy that this has finally happened.”
Continue reading...Locals say they live in fear of violence and face harsh punishment for breaking rules
When a stranger arrives in Bartiébougou, the Kalashnikov-wielding men in charge check his ID. But first they check his forehead. They are looking for the indent left by a beret – an instant indication he is a soldier and therefore an enemy spy.
Like much of eastern Burkina Faso, the government has no control over what happens in Bartiébougou; local militants, backed by west African extremist groups, do.
Continue reading...Almost two decades ago the World Health Organization declared leprosy eliminated, but millions of cases go undiagnosed
One summer’s morning Paniya Sardar noticed a strange mark on her leg. It was the size of her palm, light in colour and felt numb to touch. She had no idea what had caused it.
The family took Paniya, then 14, to a private clinic near their home on the outskirts of Biratnagar, a city in southern Nepal, where they were sold lotions and pills and told not to worry. Three months later, a deep wound appeared on her foot. “This particular blister was pretty big and wouldn’t heal,” her father, Sita Sardar, says through an interpreter. Six months later, it was still there.
Continue reading...Nicole García Aguilar was granted asylum in October but was held another seven months while Ice appealed
A Honduran transgender woman who was detained in a US immigration facility for seven months despite being granted asylum has been released after a legal challenge.
Nicole García Aguilar was freed from the Cibola County detention facility in New Mexico on Wednesday night, a week after lawyers filed a habeas corpus writ challenging her unjustified and prolonged detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Continue reading...Cyclone Idai washed away the crops that survived a savage drought, leaving 70% of the population in dire need of food
Mutemarare, 61, walks through his corn field, desperately looking for remnants of maize.
He’s not expecting to find any, as most of his crop wilted before reaching maturity, the result of the devastating drought that has hit Zimbabwe.
Continue reading...Nusrat Jahan Rafi was doused with kerosene and burned at her school, dying 10 days later of her injuries
A teenage Bangladeshi girl who reported being sexually harassed has died after being set on fire at school. Police and school authorities had ignored her complaints.
The murder of 19-year-old Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who was doused with kerosene and set on fire at her school in Feni on 6 April, followed her allegations of sexual harassment against her headteacher two weeks before. Nusrat suffered 80% burns to her body and died 10 days later from her injuries.
Continue reading...Aziza’s story reflects the growing number of violent public assaults on women deemed to be in breach of sharia law in Afghanistan
One of four women who was recently subjected to a brutal public lashing by armed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has spoken about her experience, amid an increase of violent punishments given to those violating its strict interpretation of religious law.
Aziza, who like many other Afghan women only uses one name, was rounded up by the Taliban’s shadow police for being out of her house without her husband and not being fully veiled. She was beaten so badly she lost consciousness.
Continue reading...As a voluntary agreement is struck for forces to withdraw from the port city, two friends recount the horror of conflict in their neighbourhood in Yemen
Friends Majed Al-Wahidi and Ali Al-Zazai remember the constant buzzing of drones overhead in Hodeidah on 18 November last year.
Majed, a teacher and father of six daughters, had left Ali’s house to return to his home nearby, but went back because he had forgotten his lighter. It was about 5pm and Majed’s daughters were in their bedroom, having taken a break from studying to pray in their modest, corrugated iron-covered home.
Continue reading...Judge rules that stopping access to safe housing, counselling and financial assistance after 45 days risks ‘irreparable harm’
A high court judge has suspended a Home Office policy that cuts off after six weeks all statutory support to slavery victims in the UK, ruling that it risks causing “irreparable harm to very vulnerable individuals”.
The Home Office must now immediately extend assistance to all slavery and trafficking victims requiring support in the UK, estimated to be about 600 people, over the next few months.
Continue reading...Study reveals 31% increase in sexual attacks since 2017, with many related to gang culture
Rates of sexual violence in El Salvador rose by a third last year, with the majority of cases involving teenage girls.
More than 60% of the 4,304 cases of sexual violence recorded in 2018 involved 12- to 17-year-olds, according to a report published this week by the Organisation of Salvadoran Women for Peace (Ormusa).
Continue reading...More than 2,000 new cases reported every day, with 25% of those affected being children under five
Yemen is facing a massive resurgence of cholera in what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks, with more than 137,000 suspected cases and almost 300 deaths reported in the first three months of this year.
With well over 2,000 suspected cases being recorded every day – a doubling since the beginning of the year – aid agencies fear they could be facing a major new health crisis.
Continue reading...At 15, bigotry drove Viviana Gonzalez from school. Decades on, a dedicated school in Buenos Aires is putting wrong to right
Viviana Gonzalez vividly remembers her first day of high school.
She was 12, and imagined a future as a doctor, a teacher or an artist. But the school administrator in her home town in Argentina looked at her long hair, noticed the boy’s name on her ID and kicked her out “like a dog”, admonishing her for wearing “a costume”. She refused to cut her hair and wear a tie. “I was already Viviana. I didn’t want to dress up like a boy.”
Continue reading...Jaundice affects 60% of babies. Left untreated it can be life-threatening. But treatment has always been difficult to access in rural Peru
Health workers in a remote province high in the Peruvian Andes are trialling a revolutionary method to treat babies with jaundice – with nothing more than a colour-coded ruler, blood reader and carrycots.
Their goal is to screen, diagnose and treat jaundice in 12,000 newborns over the next two years in a country where 90% of the public health facilities lack the capability to adequately diagnose or treat it in newborns.
Continue reading...President Sisi is playing cat and mouse with us, shutting down our websites and blocking our social media but we won’t give in
As the world watches the peaceful revolution that is changing Sudan in awe and amazement, it is clear that in Egypt, Sudan’s neighbour to the north, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi is getting nervous. On the same day as the protests in Khartoum reached a head, several of us who oppose Sisi’s autocratic rule launched an online petition to declare any result from Tuesday’s referendum on proposed constitutional amendments “void”.
Among the amendments Sisi is trying to force on the Egyptian people is a provision that could allow him to remain in power until 2030. The amendments would also increase the control of the military, which would be given powers to police the political sphere in Egypt. They would also give Sisi control over the appointment of judges and the public prosecutor.
Continue reading...International organisations accused of ignoring local people’s knowledge and expertise and promoting foreigners to top jobs
When Sahra Koshin first returned to Somalia from the Netherlands in 2008, she was full of hope and courage.
Eager to use her expertise in gender development to rebuild her wartorn country, she immediately started work with one of the many UN agencies in Mogadishu.
Continue reading...Long the target of reported abuses, refugees in Libya now claim they are being recruited by militias – a potential war crime
On the roofs of the highest buildings in Tajoura, a military complex and migrant detention centre in southern Tripoli, snipers are taking position.
“Tonight nobody will sleep because of fear,” said a refugee locked up there. “We can hear the sound of guns and explosion of bombs very close to the detention centre.”
Continue reading...Ten Moroccan women say Spanish authorities have ignored claims they were trafficked, assaulted and exploited
Last April, Samira Ahmad* kissed her baby goodbye and boarded a bus, leaving her home in Morocco for the strawberry fields of southern Spain.In her bag was her Spanish visa and a contract that promised €40 a day plus food and accommodation. In the three months she’d be away, she hoped the pain of being separated from her family would be softened by the money she’d be sending back to them – a fortune compared to what she’d be able to earn at home.
A year on, and Ahmad’s life is in ruins. She is destitute, divorced and for the past 10 months has been living in hiding, surviving on handouts with nine other Moroccan women who – like her – claim they faced human trafficking, sexual assault and exploitation on the farm where they were hired to work. She says her biggest mistake – other than coming to Spain – was going to the authorities.
Continue reading...For women living without access to basic sanitation, menstruation can be especially challenging. Their resourcefulness knows no bounds
All photographs courtesy of WaterAid
From animal skins and old rags to cow patties and silicon cups, women around the world use all sorts of materials to manage their periods each month.
Basic necessities for dealing properly with menstruation, such as access to clean water or a decent toilet, are simply unavailable to millions of women and girls.
Continue reading...Public defiance crosses religious divides as protesters in Khartoum sustain united call for military to relinquish power
In front of the military headquarters in Khartoum, where protesters have refused to leave following the ousting of president Omar al-Bashir, came an extraordinary show of support.
In stifling heat, a group of Coptic Christians – a minority and persecuted group in Sudan – set up shelters to allow their fellow Muslim protesters to pray away from the glare of the Friday morning sun, and without leaving the spot they’ve occupied since Saturday.
Continue reading...International Committee of the Red Cross to increase budget to $24m after president approves humanitarian assistance
The International Committee of the Red Cross is to triple aid to Venezuela, a day after the crisis-riven country’s leader approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The organisation announced the increase in the face of mounting calls for the UN to recognise the scale of the crisis facing Venezuela, and amid continued moves by the Trump administration to persuade other countries to back its calls for the removal of President Nicolás Maduro.
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