News story
UNFPA midwives on call to ensure safe births in Afghanistan’s most remote villages
Afghanistan
“Wake up! We have a delivery!” Suhila Rasuli whispered urgently the phone so as not to wake up the rest of her family so early in the morning.
Read story
News story
Syria: Rights of women and girls hang in the balance as conflict passes 12-year mark and earthquakes deepen suffering
Syrian Arab Republic
“For most people in Syria, life today carries very few prospects for a better future,” Rima, a young woman from Aleppo, told UNFPA. “People are giving up.”
Read story
News story
Five reasons why: Women and girls must have equal rights in our digital world
International Women’s Day is an occasion for people around the world to celebrate the contributions of women and girls to all aspects of human progress. But it is also an opportunity to highlight the discrimination…
Read story
News story
One year into the war, displaced Ukrainian women are determined to persevere
Moldova, Republic of, Ukraine
Everything changed when Marina fled the war in Ukraine. She left behind a successful career and a robust family support network, arriving in Moldova with her young children and little else. "It wasn’t easy to learn…
Read story
News story
“Midwives are the bridge”: Educator Duncan Shikuku on helping maternal health providers ease women’s fears and save lives
Kenya
Midwifery educator Duncan Shikuku will never forget the day in 2011 when a new mother was rushed into the hospital where he worked, carried by her family. “She was listless and bleeding. Within minutes, we had lost her…
Read story
News story
Violence plagues women and girls amid Yemen’s relentless conflict
Yemen
Rehman* was married off to an abusive man at age 15. “During our year of marriage, I lived a very hard life full of violence and abuse,” she recently told UNFPA in the governorate of Hajjah.
Read story
News story
A year on from Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine, tackling the onslaught on health and rights for generations of women and girls
Ukraine
“All of this reminds us that life continues, even during war.” Tetyana Postolovska, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, works in a UNFPA mobile reproductive health clinics in Vinnytsia, a transit region in Ukraine.
Read story
News story
A neglected global crisis for women: Nearly 300,000 mothers died in 2020 from preventable causes
Nepal
In theory, ending maternal mortality should be achievable. Nearly every maternal death is preventable, and the clinical expertise and technology necessary to avert these losses have existed for decades. Why, then, do…
Read story
News story
After more than a decade of war, earthquakes are a catastrophe on top of a crisis for millions of people in Syria
Syrian Arab Republic
Nuha gave birth to baby Huda on 5 February in Lattakia, in western Syria. The young mother remembers feeling so much hope, so much promise, for her daughter. But Huda has yet to sleep a full night in the bedroom her…
Read story
News story
Survivors face new risks in earthquake-ravaged Türkiye as health and protection services brought to the brink
Türkiye
“I’ve seen war, but this is even beyond that.” Fatma, 40, is from Idlib in northwest Syria, but lives with her four children in Adıyaman, in southern Türkiye. She was also heavily pregnant and had an appointment for a…
Read story
News story
“I lost everything in one minute”: Women and girls in dire need as earthquake emergency engulfs Türkiye and Syria
Türkiye
SYRIA/TÜRKIYE – “We were too scared. We left our houses immediately and couldn’t take anything for the birth, not a single baby cloth. There was no one to communicate with and no place to stay. We felt helpless.”
Read story
News story
“Women are not alone”: Painting a colourful call to end gender-based violence in Brazil
Brazil
In December 2022, 12 Venezuelan women and girls gathered at Rio Branco Park in Boa Vista, Brazil, and stood before an eight-metre-high white wall. For them, it was a blank canvas – one that would soon be transformed by…
Read story