Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/theresa-braine/page/2/)
Health officials at a global AIDS conference in Mexico City this week highlighted the growing feminization of the pandemic and its link to gender violence. The U.N. may form a women’s agency that advocates say could mount a more effective response.
A burnt-out journalist is reinvigorated by the enthusiasm of women in rural Mexico who jumped at the chance to join a citizen-journalism project. The women wrote about topics ranging from organic farming to gender violence.
A trip to the Guatemalan countryside shows what “maternal health care access” problems mean for women whose only way to a hospital is in a hammock carried down a steep hillside or a four-wheeler charging for two hours over rough terrain.
Despite deadly presidential campaign violence in Guatemala onlookers think efforts to bring women and indigenous people to the polls boosted turnout. The sole female presidential candidate was eliminated and the runoff is Nov. 4.
Pro-choice activists in Mexico welcomed Amnesty International’s advocacy for the decriminalization of abortion for women who have been raped or whose lives are in danger. Opposition to abortion rights, though, is firmly entrenched in the region.
Oumou Toure narrowly escaped deportation from Canada to her native Guinea because of the threat of genital mutilation that loomed over her 2-year-old daughter. The case illustrates difficulties women fleeing violence face when they seek asylum.
Federal officials here are challenging Mexico City’s new law legalizing first-trimester abortion. But as the Supreme Court decides whether to take their case, city officials and activists are doing what they can to ease its implementation.
Diana Washington Valdez has covered the slayings of Juarez women since 1999 and was suspicious of official explanations from the beginning. Her book, coming out in English in September, offers a comprehensive theory for the murders.
Mexican women who have stayed home to lead households while male relatives move to jobs in the U.S. are adding suspense to a tight presidential race. Many women say they don’t care about right or left, they just want jobs and less corruption.
In May a team of Argentine forensic experts is expected to identify the remains of some of the 400 women murdered in Juarez, Mexico, since 1993. Survivors of the dead, however, are losing hope that official complicity will ever be thoroughly probed.