Indian state takes action on child marriage
Police in the Indian state of Rajasthan have taken the rare step of arresting 16 local caste leaders for issuing a decree calling for village community members to ostracize a man who refused to allow his 16-year-old daughter to be married.
The last mile of polio eradication may be the toughest
Polio has shown over the past decade that it is a disease that won’t die easily. Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine — which has established a system designed to reduce refusals to be vaccinated — finds that, in order to eradicate the last 1% of known cases of the disease, the developing world must: better integrate social and political factors into assessments; find out what is driving resistance to vaccination; and design and monitor strategies to better enable people to feel ownership of their immunization programs.
“Missing girls” crisis haunts India
Wealthier, better-educated families in India have been aborting girls at an increasing rate over the past two decades, a study shows. Government efforts to slow sex-selective abortions have been insufficient, according to the study, as 2011 marked the lowest ratio of girls to boys since independence in 1947.
Mozambique nears measles targets
Mozambique is the first sub-Saharan African country to be within striking distance of a target to reduce measles death by 98% by 2012, United Nations Foundation officials say. Authorities will vaccinate 3.6 million children during a five-day campaign that began Sunday in a bid to build upon the country’s current 74.1% immunization coverage.
UN chief addresses maternal, child mortality in Nigeria
UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Nigeria on Sunday for a two-day visit weeks after Africa’s most populous nation held elections viewed as the fairest in nearly two decades despite deadly rioting. The UN Secretary General decried an “unacceptable” rate of child and maternal mortality due to poor health systems globally. “Unfortunately around the world, health systems are not working for women and children. A thousand women die every day from complications, pregnancy and child birth,” he said on a visit to a UN-funded hospital in the capital Abuja.
Challenging child marriage
Child marriage continues to put 600 million girls worldwide at risk from health problems, abuse and economic disadvantage even though many countries such as India, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe are working to end the custom, says United Nations Foundation Executive Director for Women and Children Tamara Kreinin. The international community must continue to place pressure on developing countries to accelerate change.
Kyrgyz NGO turns spotlight on custom of bride kidnapping
Hundreds in a northern province of Kyrgyzstan last week protested the widespread custom of bride kidnapping — in which a man kidnaps a woman to pressure her into marriage — after the suicides of two 20-year-old women who had been seized. “Our researches indicate that between 68 and 75 percent of marriages in Kyrgyzstan take place with bride kidnapping,” said a representative of a Kyrgyz nongovernmental organization founded to end the practice, laws against which are rarely enforced.
