Tag Archives: womens health sexual and reproductive rights

Is Sierra Leone’s Free Healthcare Program for Pregnant Women and Children Working?

September 7, 2011 at 5:03 PM

By Kim Lanegran, Amnesty USA Country Specialist for Sierra Leone

sierra leone mother and babyIt’s been a little over a year since the government of Sierra Leone launched its groundbreaking free healthcare program for children and pregnant women.

While we’re thrilled about the good news — more women now receive pre and post-natal health care, over 39,000 women delivered their babies in health care facilities, and many lives have been saved — there is still a lot to be done.

Amnesty International’s new report on the Free Health Policy finds that free adequate care is simply not being delivered.

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Mao Hengfeng's Bittersweet Homecoming

August 8, 2011 at 11:03 AM

Mao Hengfeng with her three daughters.

Mao Hengfeng, a human rights defender in China, a wife, and a mother of three, has just been released from her most recent bout of detention and torture — an experience so brutal that her life is at urgent risk.

Her crime? Advocating on behalf of women’s reproductive rights, the victims of forced evictions in Shanghai, and other Chinese human rights defenders.

Mao’s most recent arrest was a result of her protest in front of the Beijing municipal intermediate court expressing support for human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo. On March 4, 2010, Mao was sentenced to 18 months in Re-education Through Labor.

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Nicaraguan Women Demand Their Rights In Face of Rampant Sexual Violence

June 18, 2011 at 9:00 AM

By Tarah Demant, Women’s Human Rights Group

Obeygiant.com/Shepard Fairey for Amnesty International

Women and girls in Nicaragua are at risk.

In its most recent global report, Amnesty International reported on the high rates of violence against women and girls in Nicaragua, especially rape and sexual violence.  Such violence is rooted in a global culture of discrimination, which systematically devalues the lives, rights, and voices of women.

In Nicaragua, girls are especially vulnerable to rape and sexual violence.  Two thirds of rape victims are under 18, and the most common cases are for girls between the ages of 13 and 15.

Most young survivors of rape get little or no government support to rebuild their lives. The government has so far failed to fulfill its duty to prevent sexual abuse and provide care and support to survivors.

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Maternal Health Key To Empowering Women

May 20, 2011 at 2:17 PM

By Amnesty’s Women’s Human Rights Coordination Group

Next week, we’ll be concluding our Mother’s Day blog series by looking at the international dimensions of maternal mortality.  Today we’d like to focus on maternal health as a key to empowering women worldwide.

Globally, motherless children are 10 times more likely to die within two years of their mothers’ death.  A mother’s health and nutrition, what care and assistance she received during her pregnancy and delivery determined whether she and you are alive today, and whether you are battling with developmental problems, birth defects, or illnesses, including perinatal HIV.

Every 90 seconds a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. This is 1,000 women, or more than 2 filled-to-capacity jumbo jets crashing daily.  Amnesty International considers this a human rights scandal, not only because almost all of these deaths are preventable, but because they are the culmination of abuses and discrimination against women, from insufficient access to basic healthcare, lack of comprehensive family planning and reproductive healthcare services, early marriages, gender-based violence, to inadequate redress.

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Christy Turlington Burns: Shining A Light On Maternal Health

May 4, 2011 at 9:26 AM

Christy Turlington Burns is a mom, global maternal health advocate, author, filmmaker, public health student, yogi and model. Her directorial debut, No Woman No Cry, shares the powerful stories of at-risk pregnant women in four parts of the world, including the United States.

Join Amnesty International house parties to watch the film’s broadcast premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network this Saturday, May 7 (the night before Mother’s Day), at 9:30 ET/PT and again on May 8 at 1pm ET/PT.

We spoke with Christy recently about her work to improve maternal health worldwide:

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First Year of Sierra Leone’s Free Care Policy

April 28, 2011 at 8:37 AM

By Kim Lanegran, Sierra Leone Country Specialist

Pregnant women at a maternity waiting house in Sierra Leone © AI

On April 27th, Sierra Leoneans celebrated two important anniversaries: 50 years of independence from Great Britain; one year of  free health care to children under five and pregnant and lactating women.

Since independence, Sierra Leone has struggled from crushing poverty, human rights atrocities and a decade of horrible civil war.  When the war ended in 2002, Sierra Leone faced many challenges, not the least of which was that it was among the very worst countries in the world to be a pregnant woman or a child.

Amnesty International played a pivotal role drawing attention to the human costs of inadequate maternal health care in Sierra Leone and helped Sierra Leoneans demand reforms from their government.  Amnesty’s work emphasizing that maternal health is a human right and that other human rights abuses, such as gender discrimination, exacerbate the failure of health care delivery was crucial.

This work continues in Sierra Leone, Africa and throughout the world. Join us in shining a light on maternal health this Mother’s Day.

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