The empowerment of women and girls in low and middle-income countries has long been recognized as a cornerstone of sustainable development. Yet despite billions in foreign aid spent on development projects annually, the international community is falling short on meeting the sustainable development goal (SDG) to achieve gender equality. The gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have provided further setbacks for women. However, incorporating mechanisms aimed at increasing women’s empowerment into existing and future development projects is one potential solution to close the gender gap. Indeed, interdependencies of the SDGs can encourage positive spillovers or downstream effects; efforts targeted at one SDG can also impact another. Following this assumption, it is possible for interventions aimed at SDG 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) to, for example, impact SDG 5 (achieve gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls). My dissertation project leverages these interdependencies and exploits an external health intervention targeted at women...
Ethiopian health clinics supporting teenagers have been shut down. Decades worth of HIV care integration and family planning progress have completely unraveled in Kenya (Henderson, 2020). The duties of government workers dedicated to traveling the Himalayas to share health related information have been stopped (Henderson, 2020). These are some of the effects from the implementation of President Trump’s 2017 global aid policy, “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.” The “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance,” also referred to as the “The Global Gag Rule,” has made lasting impacts under the Trump administration (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2020). This policy requires non-governmental organizations to refrain from using funds from U.S. and non-U.S. sources to promote or provide abortion care as a form of family planning (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2020). This policy is an extension of the Mexico City Policy which was first announced in 1984 at an international conference under President Reagan's administration and the policy has been in and out of effect...
The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has devastated communities across the United States since early this spring and continues to do so on a global scale. The impact on maternal health and welfare, and by extension child health has not been lost on mothers across the world. Hospitals have closed their doors to visitors and accompanying loved ones for those seeking healthcare – victims of COVID-19 fight alone and too often succumb to the illness without their primary emotional support systems, but rather in isolated rooms with little human contact. In the case of pregnant and expectant mothers, this means potentially giving birth alone. These women are now also kept in isolation rooms, away from their families and loved ones, and surrounded by healthcare workers masked in personal protective equipment – a far cry from the societal norms previously established and long withstanding (Hermann, Fitelson, & Bergink, 2020). This newfound isolation and the impact of the pandemic extends to reaching antenatal care and...
Recent attention has been focused on what the Biden-Harris administration can accomplish with executive orders starting from day one. From student debt relief to fully implementing the Defense Production Act, these actions can have a direct impact on domestic economic relief and health care. History tells us that, like every recent Democratic presidential administration, within the first few days of office Biden will also repeal the Global Gag Rule. This executive order will permit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving U.S. foreign aid to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion advocacy and abortion services. But the impact this action could have goes well beyond abortion and into other areas of public health as well. From July-October 2020, my two undergraduate research assistants (Ema Kuczura and Sarah Hubner) and I interviewed 35 sexual and reproductive health NGOs in Kenya who universally reported that the Global Gag Rule (implemented by the Trump administration in January 2017 and expanded by Secretary of State...
Maternal health and reproductive care were already facing known disparities before COVID-19 made its impact on the world. In 2017, more than 800 women in the world died daily from preventable pregnancy and childbirth related causes across the world (Witter, 2020). Also, at that point in time, 10 million girls ages 15-19 were experiencing unplanned pregnancies every year (Witter, 2020). So, it is to be expected that when the world faces a pandemic that causes an incline in challenges to accessing resources, that poorer health outcomes are going to be experienced amongst this same threatened group (Witter, 2020). During a health crisis, funds are reallocated and shifted to different resources (Witter, 2020), thus having a monumental impact on an already vulnerable population. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sana Frontiérs partnered with governments around the world in an attempt to prioritize reproductive services as essential during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kuehn, 2020). The cutbacks in maternal health funds alone has the potential to lead to 113,000...
By: Sandra Yvonne Oketch The Lives in the balance COVID- 19 virtual summit on July 1 and 2 had an interesting breakout session examining evidence on COVID-19 impact on the health of women, children and adolescents. This session was facilitated by Joy Lawn, Professor, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. It is important to note that in 2019, there were already over 9 million deaths of women and children, with over 50% of these deaths related to pregnancy and birth. This current pandemic exacerbates this situation and undermines the ‘Every Woman Every Child’ campaign efforts. The ‘Every Woman Every Child’ campaign is a global movement launched by the United Nations that mobilizes and intensifies actors including International and National action by Governments, multilaterals and civil societies to address the major health challenges facing women and children globally. Some of the campaign’s targets to end preventable death for women and children and ensure their health and well-being include: No woman should die...
By: Sandra Y. Oketch Mid-April, I was privileged to join the Live webcast on discussions around the Effects of COVID-19 on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) among young people in Africa. The panelists included experts in the medical, advocacy, and policy fields: Dr. Charlene Biwott (KEMRI, Kenya), Millicent Sethaile (Her Voice Ambassador, Botswana), and Levi Singh (Youth SRHR Strategy Officer, South Africa). The moderator was Evelyne Odhiambo (AfNHi Youth Cohort, Kenya). Important to note were conversations around the vulnerability of young people during this pandemic where the younger populations have so far been the least vulnerable to complications and death from COVID-19 and yet play a very key role in flattening the COVID-19 curve by minimizing transmissions to the vulnerable populations in our society that include the immune-compromised and the elderly. Currently, there has been a great shift of focus in Africa to cater to the COVID-19 pandemic thereby impacting negatively in other areas including SRHR. Some of the effects on...
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to view aspects of how the virus and its crisis affect men and women differently across the world and specifically in the United States (COVID-19: A Gender Lens). It seems that in areas where thousands have been diagnosed with COVID-19, more men appear to be infected and dying than women—although the biologic reasons behind these observations are not yet fully clear. A news article published on April 7, 2020, figures reported from New York City’s Health Department show “there have been nearly 43 Covid-19 deaths for every 100,000 men in the city, compared with 23 such deaths for every 100,000 women” (Rabin). According to the article “The gendered dimensions of COVID-19” in The LANCET, an organization called Global Health 50/50 tracks sex-disaggregated infection and mortality COVID-19 data from 39 countries (The Lancet). This data from Global Health 50/50 shows more men are dying from COVID-19 and finds that particularly threatening outcomes of the...
Article by Sandra Y. Oketch Globally, access to sexual reproductive health rights (SRHR services) have been greatly hampered by social exclusion, more so in Africa. In November 2019, Kenya was privileged to host the United Nations summit - International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD 25) - which focused on diversity, abortion care, ending gender based violence, elimination of female genital mutilation, FGM, ending unmet need for family planning, comprehensive sexuality education, mental health and psychosocial support, HIV prevention for adolescent girls and women. Women and other minority groups experience social exclusion when women and girls get abortions, when girls fail to undergo traditional practices of some communities, like the FGM, and are considered outcasts, and when individuals identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender, LGBT. There exists high maternal morbidity and mortality in women due to unsafe abortion practices. In Kenya, abortion is illegal and only legalized in instances where the health care provider assesses that the life or health of the...
Article by Diya Chadha This election cycle’s candidates are comprised of a diverse group, with representation of people from different racial/ethnic groups, sexual identities, religious backgrounds, geographic backgrounds, and more. They fall into different categories when it comes to where they stand on the democratic “spectrum” as well. More than ever before though, we’ve seen a strong contingent of very liberal, democratic socialist candidates for the presidency, in addition to politics in general. Because of the increasingly leftist policies that they’re proposing (especially when compared to the current state of U.S. politics), it has been interesting to see just how the candidates opt to speak about abortion and reproductive healthcare access, both as a women’s rights issue and a healthcare one. Interestingly, as progressive of a group as the candidates seem to be, they’re really failing when it comes to the way they talk about abortion in the explicit sense. At the last democratic debate, only two of the eight candidates asked...
