IPPF/WHR in the News | International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region

A Oaxacan Mother Discusses How to Talk to Kids About Sex

On Good Samaritan Day, we visited the tiny Oaxacan town of Ciénega de Zimatlán. We were there to meet with some of Mexfam’s volunteer health educators and visit the local health care clinic, but the real action was in the town’szocalo (town square) where plastic tubs of creamy horchata and other delicacies were being set up for the community celebration. It was there that I met Mexfam volunteer Rigoberta Sánchez León.

Rigoberta is a short, energetic woman who immediately makes you feel as though you have known her forever. When I introduced myself and asked her if I could interview her, she grabbed my hand and told me that I could call her “oregano” if I wanted—as the Italian Americans she had met while living in the United States had done—then laughed heartily.

Rigoberta told me she first became a volunteer animadora—or community health educator—because she cares deeply about the well-being of her three teenage children and the community at-large. A full-time housewife, Rigoberta educates women about their sexual and reproductive health and rights. She also helps them provide accurate information about sex and sexual health to their children.

How Sex Education Programs Can Shape a Better Future

In Latin American countries and in the Caribbean, where income disparities are among the greatest in the world, too many people often lack access to comprehensive health services and information needed to live healthy lives.

That's why comprehensive, rights-based sexuality education programs are so crucial, particularly today and for the largest generation of adolescents and youth the world has ever seen, says Jovana Ríos Cisnero, who promotes sexual and reproductive health and rights on behalf of the Asociación Panameña para el Planeamiento de la Familia (Panamanian Family Planning Association), which is associated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR).

The lack of access is also why IPPF's member associations have launched community-based models for giving vulnerable populations access to health care and education, which include contraception, basic health services and education on sexuality.

"We believe that to achieve good health, you do not only need accurate information, but also quality services and knowledge of your sexual and reproductive rights," says Cisnero, who focuses especially on women, youth and other vulnerable groups.

U.N. Correspondent Aline Jenckel interviewed Cisnero about the work of IPPS/WHR on young peoples' issues and the impact of their services on the ability of women to make important, informed decisions regarding their own lives.

Why aren’t women’s issues on the agenda at Rio+20?

In just two months, world leaders will gather in Rio to hammer out a new set of agreements on what sustainable development means, and more importantly, how both rich and developing nations can get there before it’s too late. Day by day, the buzz is building around this historic Earth Summit. But there’s a problem: The big plans being hatched for the occasion — nicknamed Rio+20 — leave women out.

Of course there will be scores of women leaders at the Earth Summit. But key issues that matter to women — reproductive health, gender equality, girls’ education — are notable for their absence from the agenda. That needs to change.

Women, Republicans and the Rhetoric of 'Choice'

"What we want is women to be able to make their own choices […] We want women to make their own choices in healthcare … Women don't need anyone to tell them what to do on healthcare. We want women to have their own choices, their own money, that way they can make their own choices for the future of their own bodies."

I couldn't have said it better myself. But to my surprise, these were not the words of Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama. Rather, they were uttered by Representative Michele Bachmann, on Sunday's Meet the Press during a segment about Obamacare. And while I am sure these words made her press secretary cringe, they made me take note of the way the notion of "choice" has recently crept into Republican talking points.

Sex, Drugs and Latin America

Much of the media coverage of the Summit of the Americas focused on the drug cartels and violence that affect several countries throughout the region. Just last week, the Washington Post ran a gritty photo series on violence in Honduras, where the murder rate is roughly 20 times that of the United States.

While violence presents a serious threat to human security, there is an equally pressing issue at hand that is rarely discussed: the health and well-being of Latin America's youth.

Rio +20 Women’s Major Group: Sustainable development must be based on equity, human rights and gender equality!

Today, March 26th, during the Third Intersessional meeting of the UNCSD — to discuss and prepare the outcome of Rio+20 in June– the Women’s Major Group delivered the following intervention:

Thank you Ms. Thompson, Mr Lalonde, for this opportunity of interaction.

I am Doris Mpoumou (with the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region), and I speak on behalf of the women’s major group. We, the Women’s Major Group, are deeply concerned, about the pace and state of the negotiations of the past week. Let me reword this: we are scandalized!

An Illegal Abortion in Mexico Changed My Life

“Do you have a problem with blood?”

“No,” I lied.

“Great, I have a woman coming tomorrow at 10 am.”

That simple exchange left me a changed woman.

I was 22 years old and traveling alone in Mexico. I came to stay with a French-Canadian documentary filmmaker and his Mexican doctor wife, whom I'd met at a speaking event they held several months earlier at my university. We’ll call the doctor 'Cepoori'.

Inspired by the message of Che Guevara in her youth, Cepoori decided in her teens that she wanted to become a doctor and help the disenfranchised. Living in a small town several hours outside of Mexico City, Cepoori is one of the only Mexican doctors who is willing to break the law to provide a clandestine abortion to any woman who needs one, regardless of whether she is able to pay.

What Innovations Are Helping HIV+ Women in the Dominican Republic?

Fourteen years ago, Edilia Natera learned she was HIV-positive when her doctor ran blood tests during her pregnancy. What would be devastating news to any expecting mother was tantamount to a death sentence for Edilia.

“There wasn’t the same knowledge [in the Dominican Republic] in those days as there is now,” Natera remembers. “I didn’t have help.”

During childbirth, Natera’s baby came in contact with her blood and was born HIV-positive. “Now, if you’re pregnant, treatment starts right away. Doctors perform a Cesarean and you don’t breastfeed. If you follow all the instructions the doctor gives you, your baby may be born healthy. Mine wasn’t so lucky.” Natera’s baby died when she was just five years old.

Sex, Reproduction, and the MDGs: Why Funding for Reproductive Health Care is Critical to Combatting Global Poverty

This week, the World Bank reported that Latin America and Africa are the only two regions that have not met the Millennium Development Goal to reduce extreme poverty. Latin America may be the wealthiest region in the developing world on a per capita basis, but it also has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. Statistical averages across the region mask the existence of the significant inequality within it that hinders access to sexual and reproductive health services for the region's most vulnerable -- in particular, rural, poor, indigenous, and youth populations.

Sexual and reproductive health is fundamental to our overall well-being, and investment in sexual and reproductive health care holds enormous benefits for individuals and societies. The right of women and men to control their fertility and have reliable access to quality health services is at the center of contemporary reproductive health and sustainable development policies. Still, nearly half of sexually active young women in Latin America and the Caribbean have an unmet need for contraception.

Mixed messages from the Catholic Church on contraception

Over the past few weeks, contraception has become a hot-button issue in American politics. After the Obama Administration began requiring employers to provide contraception in their health coverage, the Catholic Church fought back, saying the ruling runs against Church doctrine.

Pundits, activists and presidential hopefuls have been up in arms, despite the fact that 98 per cent of Catholic women in America say they have used some type of birth control.