Health
Elephantiasis Potential Concern in Post-Hurricane Haiti
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Experts are hoping elephantiasis doesn’t spread in Haiti post-Hurricane Matthew. Women are the hardest hit by this disease, which is a leading cause of disability worldwide.
Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/haiti/)
Experts are hoping elephantiasis doesn’t spread in Haiti post-Hurricane Matthew. Women are the hardest hit by this disease, which is a leading cause of disability worldwide.
Handling periods (or “menstrual hygiene management” as experts call it) isn’t the first thing one might associate with human rights. Yet the link between realization of rights for women and girls and menstrual hygiene management could not be clearer.
An elderly woman at a camp of makeshift tents in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.Credit: UN Photo/Sophia Paris.
(WOMENSENEWS)–
Women in Haiti report they have yet to recover economically in the two years after the earthquake. Memories of the disaster are still fresh, and the losses have left their incomes significantly smaller.
Conditions have become worse for many Haitian women and girls after last year’s earthquake, including access to reproductive health care, says Amanda M. Klasing. Their needs must be considered in every aspect of reconstruction and at each step.
The California legislature plans to pass the California Dream Act, a law that would allow undocumented immigrants to receive state-financed aid for college.
Haitian women’s rights activists are still living in tents and cars, and mourning the loss of three leaders in the January earthquake. They are also organizing. A loose-knit coalition hopes to rebuild a more women-centered Haiti.
A female U.N. police force from Bangladesh is bringing hope of better protection to Haitian women in makeshift camps for those displaced by the earthquake. Women’s activists in one camp say it’s not enough. They need help urgently.
The U.N. has devised various programs to provide food and aid directly to women, who often get outmuscled by men during disaster situations. Relief efforts have become complicated as many Haitian female leaders who worked with U.N. agencies were lost during the earthquake.
As the disturbing images following the earthquake in Port-au-Prince unfold, Haitian-American Ariel Leconte reflects on the city her parents left as children and how this catastrophe has impacted her family here and in Haiti.