From Sunset to a New Dawn: Sustaining Civil Society’s Voice on Safe Motherhood

March 13, 2024
By Jay Gribble & Rebecca Levine

Maternal mortality continues to be one of the scourges in global health. The fact that women die as part of bringing life is an indictment against the overall status of women around the world, and underscores the failure to prioritize women, mothers, and children. Efforts to draw attention to the causes of maternal death and the solutions to maternal mortality abound, but they fail to get enough attention from the decisionmakers who establish health priorities and allocate resources that could actually make a difference.

Global advocacy efforts—such as those led by the White Ribbon Alliance (WRA)—have made progress in drawing attention to maternal mortality, as well as the need to improve maternal health services and outcomes. While improvements in these areas continue to take place, there is still much to achieve through advocacy to improve services and outcomes.

Continued: https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2024/03/from-sunset-to-a-new-dawn-sustaining-civil-societys-voice-on-safe-motherhood/

13.03.2024

White Ribbon Alliance

Kenya – ‘Dumped babies are just the tip of the iceberg’: The deadly consequences of curbing reproductive rights

‘Dumped babies are just the tip of the iceberg’: The deadly consequences of curbing reproductive rights

Louise Donovan and Nasibo Kabale, in Nairobi
13 November 2019

It’s a hot mid-August morning, and Lydia Wambui’s bright green overalls are soaked. She’s standing knee-deep in Nairobi River, using a metal rod to catch rubbish lazily flowing down its murky waters.

“Sewage, bottle-tops, needles – people chuck everything in here,” she says, wiping sweat off her forehead before adding: “We also keep finding babies.”

Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/dumped-babies-just-tip-iceberg-deadly-consequences-curbing-reproductive/

Groundbreaking legislation protects women’s, girls’ and newborns’ health rights in Nepal

Groundbreaking legislation protects women’s, girls’ and newborns’ health rights in Nepal

Oct 29, 2018
By Stephanie Bowen, Director of Strategic Communication, White Ribbon Alliance

White Ribbon Alliance members across the world offer congratulations to our colleagues from the Safe Motherhood Network Federation Nepal (SMNF/WRA Nepal) on the passage of the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, 2018. This achievement is part of a larger effort to embed reproductive, maternal and newborn health and health rights into Nepal’s Constitution, accomplished in 2016, then strengthen the country’s laws to uphold these rights. After more than a decade of work, on October 15, 2018, Nepal’s House of Representatives unanimously passed the groundbreaking law, explicitly protecting the health and rights of women, girls, adolescents and newborns.

“Achieving this victory was far from simple or straightforward,” said Dr. Arzu Rena Deuba, Founder of SMNF/WRA Nepal “It took years of hard work and remaining focused on our goal of embedding quality, respectful maternal and reproductive healthcare for women and girls into Nepal’s constitution and its laws.”

Continued: https://medium.com/@WRAglobal/groundbreaking-legislation-protects-womens-girls-and-newborns-health-rights-in-nepal-52c901c2c509?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=5e57b7e9-ecd4-45a3-ba79-5af3822200e5