All posts by Melissa Pracht

U.S. Prohibits Access to Safe Abortions in Other Countries

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In Haiti, a girl runs by a pharmacy that illegally sells drugs to induce abortion. Photo by Patrick Farrell

In Haiti, a girl runs by a pharmacy that illegally sells drugs to induce abortion. Photo by Patrick Farrell

A girl or woman who is raped and impregnated by Boko Haram in Nigeria might have no access to a safe abortion, leaving her with only bad and worse choices, thanks to the United States. The U.S. is the single largest donor country for women’s health programming and the only major donor country that puts draconian restrictions on access to safe abortion, even in cases of rape.

“Unsafe abortions are a leading cause of maternal deaths in Kenya, which has one of the 20 highest maternal mortality rates in the world,” writes Laura Bassett in ‘Instruments of Oppression’, published in the Huffington Post’s Highline. “By the end of the [last] decade, some 100,000 women a year were dying or landing in emergency rooms with complications from unsafe abortions—fever, sepsis and organ failure. The crisis became so urgent that Kenya’s new constitution, approved by popular vote in 2010, declared that abortion would be legal when, ‘in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law.’” 

Soon after, the U.S. stepped in and warned Kenyan health providers receiving U.S. aid that performing abortions would be a violation of the 1973 Helms amendment.

“Two months later,” Bassett writes, “in February, the ministry wrote a second letter instructing all health providers to halt safe abortion trainings and stop stocking the medication that doctors use to perform non-surgical abortions in the first trimester. ‘Abortion on demand is illegal,’ the letter said, so ‘there is no need of training health workers on safe abortion or importation of drugs for medical abortion.’”

President Obama could remove the restrictions attached to U.S. funding on providing abortions in Kenya and other countries where the unsafe termination of pregnancy kills and injures so many girls and women; Bassett explores why he hasn’t. Read ‘Instruments of Oppression’.
  #tomorrowneedsher #womenshealth Because Tomorrow Needs Her focuses on some of the impediments to women’s health, exposing injustices that disproportionately affect women and girls around the world.

Before the Beginning

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A pregnant woman waits to receive treatment at Gondama Health Center in Bo, Sierra Leone, in 2014. The Ebola outbreak forced MSF to close the GHC, as patients' and staff's safety could not be guarranteed. Recently MSF began supporting another maternal health hospital in the region. Photo by Lam Yik Fei

A pregnant woman waits to receive treatment at Gondama Health Center in Bo, Sierra Leone, in 2014. The Ebola outbreak forced MSF to close the GHC, as patients’ and staff’s safety could not be guarranteed. Recently MSF began supporting another maternal health hospital in the region. Photo by Lam Yik Fei

“She arrived septic and in a bad condition”.

  I’m sitting in the morning meeting of the hospital that MSF is starting to support, it’s only 8am and already the heat and humidity is building up. 

—Dr. Benjamin Black, MSF OBGYN in Sierra Leone

  Before Ebola hit West Africa last year, maternal mortality accounted for roughly 36% of all deaths of women between ages 15 and 49 in Sierra Leone, already an extremely high number.  Since the epidemic shattered what health systems were functional in that country, the percentage is certain to be substantially higher now and rising.

  Benjamin Black is on his third assignment to Sierra Leone with MSF and in his most recent blog post, he writes about one patient whose experience represents the entirely preventable and  largely ignored public health emergency of maternal death – “on an epic scale burning in the hills around us.”

  Read the blog.  
  #tomorrowneedsher #womenshealth #SierraLeone #Ebola

Because Tomorrow Needs Her focuses on some of the impediments to women’s health, exposing injustices that disproportionately affect women and girls around the world.

Join our Webcast on Fistulas June 25!

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Women living with a fistula frequently live as outcasts, rejected from family and community. The physical pain, combined with the social implications, can make life unbearable. On June 25, as part of MSF’s ongoing Because Tomorrow Needs Her project on women’s health, three fistula experts will discuss why women continue to develop this preventable condition, the impact fistulas have on women, their families and their communities, and the options that exist for treatment and prevention.

Viewer participation is encouraged via a chat feature available during the webcast.

Find out more.

#endFistula #TomorrowNeedsHer

Mass Rape in South Kivu, DRC

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South Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Eddy Van Wessel

South Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Eddy Van Wessel

MSF treated 127 women who were raped after an attack on the town of Kikamba on May 1.

“The attackers looted homes, assaulted men, and raped a large number of women in the early morning hours after the attack. They also took roughly 30 children as prisoners, using them to carry stolen goods before releasing them.”

“Large-scale sexual assaults linked to armed groups are, unfortunately, not exceptional within the DRC context,” said Francisco Otero, MSF head of mission in South Kivu.

Read the story

Breathe: The Story of Saleem

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MSF doctor Wong Poh Fei provides treatment to a newborn in Afghanistan. Photo by Sandra Calligaro

MSF doctor Wong Poh Fei provides treatment to a newborn in Afghanistan. Photo by Sandra Calligaro

From MSF’s field blogs, Dr. Wong Poh Fei describes working to save a very sick newborn in Afghanistan:

“I felt a lump form in the back of my throat as she tried to console me in return, after I had just explained to her that her baby was very sick and that although we had tried our best to help him, I was not sure he would make it.

She was a petite woman; mother of two – who had just given birth to her third child. Tears welled up in her eyes but she held them back. I put my arms around her and said no more. It was an unspoken understanding that a sick newborn’s life is fragile in this country and that the loss of a child (or children) is a common occurrence in many women’s lives. But that still does not take the pain away from a mother, whose maternal instincts are to nurture and protect her children.

Read the blog entry

Sexual violence as a weapon of war in Syria

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From Foreign Policy’s article, published March 18, on the “rampant” sexual assault happening now in Syria, The Women in the Middle of the War:

“Those who rape and violate women in Syria do so by taking advantage of certain social taboos that make it difficult for women to talk about what happened to them. They fear being ostracized by their communities, or even by their families. In areas controlled by religious extremists, women who are violated also fear for their lives, as being sentenced to death

Sexual assault is not an accidental consequence of war, but a strategy for control.
is a possible consequence for being forced to participate in certain sexual acts. These possibilities are a form of social control that can be leveraged during chaotic situations like the one in Syria right now. Sexual assault is not an accidental consequence of war, but a strategy for control.”

Read the story

Watch the video from the Because Tomorrow Needs Her panel discussion

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On March 4, 2015, Nina Strochlic of the Daily Beast led a discussion with MSF field workers, and one of Because Tomorrow Needs Her photojournalists, on women’s health care.

Panelists:

Martina Bacigalupo studied photography at the London College of Communication. She lives in Burundi, where she works as a freelance photographer, often in collaboration with international NGOs. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Sunday Times Magazine, Le Monde, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Liberation, Internazionale, and has been shown in several international venues, including PARIS PHOTO 2013, UNSEEN Amsterdam 2014, and AIPAD New York 2014. She won the Canon Female Photojournalist Award in 2010 and the Fnac Award for photographic creation in 2011.

Dr. Séverine Caluwaerts is a obstetrician-gynecologist and one of the referent gynecologists for MSF. Prior to joining MSF, she spent a year of her residency in South Africa, where she cared for a large population of HIV-positive women. She has completed assignments for MSF in Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Burundi, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. When she is not on mission, she works with HIV-positive pregnant women in Belgium and is involved in teaching medical students and midwives.

Catrin Schulte-Hillen has worked for MSF as a midwife, project coordinator and project manager in conflict and post-conflict contexts in Africa, Latin America, and the Balkans. She is the leader of MSF’s reproductive health and sexual violence care working group. Prior to that, Schulte-Hillen was a program director for MSF-USA and worked for several years as a health advisor and consultant for MSF, the European Commission, and other NGOs. She is a licensed midwife and holds a masters of public health degree, a license in applied epidemiology and statistics, and a degree in business administration.

Africa Stewart is a wife and mother of three who graduated with honors from the Johns Hopkins University. She completed her medical degree and residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Drexel University and Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Stewart joined MSF in 2011 and has completed assignments in Sudan, South Sudan, and Nigeria. She is an outspoken supporter of women’s rights and specializes in obstetric fistula prevention and repair. She continues to serve her local communities with adolescent outreach and education.

Nina Strochlic, moderator, is a reporter at the Daily Beast, covering women’s rights and international development. She’s reported from South America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa, most extensively in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has written for Vice, Marie Claire and National Geographic Traveler.

#TomorrowNeedsHer

NYT story says more cases of FGM are being seen in the U.S.

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MSF doctors and midwives see female genital mutilation or FGM (also called female genital cutting) in many of the places where MSF works. In some places, the vast majority of women coming in for maternal care will have undergone some version of the proceedure. The New York Times cites a Centers For Disease Control and Prevention report that says as the number of African migrants in the US has grown, so have the number of women with FGM who are having a dificult time getting gynecological care.

“Public health officials… are warning that some doctors and nurses are not prepared to deal with the physical and emotional complications associated with the procedure — sometimes called female genital mutilation or F.G.M./C — and in some cases may unintentionally traumatize the women they are trying to help.”

Read Effects of Ancient Custom Present New Challenge to U.S. Doctors