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	This Mother’s Day, remembering the joys – and dangers – of motherhood by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)   12 May 2017   Syria – Motherhood should be a time of joy, but for too many women, it comes with something else: peril.   "Becoming a mother and having a family was always a dream of mine. But I never expected it to happen in these circumstances," Fatima told aid workers in Homs, the conflict-affected governorate in Syria.   She and her husband, Essam, fled brutal violence in Palmyra last autumn, when she was less than three months pregnant.   They settled in shelter Homs, where they struggled with the persistent insecurity, as well as unemployment, poverty and limited access to health services. As her pregnancy progressed, she grew frail.   This coming Sunday, dozens of countries around the world will observe Mother’s Day. It is a day to celebrate mothers everywhere, but also a moment to reflect on the risks that too many women still encounter on their journey to motherhood – and what can be done about it.   Despite decades of commitments by governments and leaders, mothers continue to die in massive numbers from entirely preventable causes.   An estimated 303,000 women died in 2015 of pregnancy- and childbirth-related complications, the vast majority of which were preventable or treatable. This amounts to one maternal death every two minutes.   Ninety-nine per cent of these deaths occurred in developing parts of the world, a combination of under-resourced health systems, poor infrastructure, and lack of priority given to women’s health and rights.   Women in humanitarian crises and fragile settings face some of the greatest barriers to life-saving health care. A dramatic increase in maternal deaths is often seen during conflicts and disasters, and even in the aftermath of humanitarian crises.   Data show that just 35 countries considered to be fragile, crisis-affected or crisis-prone account for almost two thirds of all maternal deaths.   Fatima was at risk of becoming one of these grim statistics.   The Syrian crisis has been devastating for civilians. An estimated 6.3 million people are internally displaced, and mass movements of civilians are continuing, and in some cases intensifying.   Vulnerable women are paying a particular toll. An estimated 4.1 million women and girls of reproductive age are affected by the crisis – including 360,000 pregnant women. All of these women and girls require sexual and reproductive health care, services that include check-ups, health information, family planning and antenatal care. Yet the conflict has interrupted access to these vital services.   Fortunately, Fatima was able to get help. Her new neighbours urged her to visit a UNFPA-supported medical clinic. There, she was found to be severely underweight and lacking in essential vitamins and minerals.   At first, she felt guilty for being weak. “What if I give birth to a sick baby?” she worried.   But she began to receive regular check-ups at the clinic, where UNFPA also referred her to a monthly food voucher system operated by its partner, the World Food Programme (WPF). In addition to obtaining fresh food, she also received guidance on what foods would help her maintain a healthy pregnancy. (This partnership also works in reverse, with WFP referring pregnant women and new mothers to UNFPA for health care.)   Over time, Fatima’s health showed steady improvement. Six months later, at the clinic, she delivered a healthy baby boy, whom she named Jad.   Reaching those most in need   Around the world, UNFPA supports sexual and reproductive health care, with a special focus on providing care to women and girls in humanitarian emergencies.   UNFPA and its partners deploy mobile clinics, trained health professionals and life-saving health supplies, helping women to safely manage their pregnancies and give birth in some of the most harrowing settings.   Still, much more is needed, including strengthened health systems and increased access to sexual and reproductive health services for all people, especially those in crises.   Fortunately, for Fatima, the threats have subsided – at least for now.   She continues to receive the WFP food vouchers, which are helping her stay healthy while nursing little Jad, and she gets postnatal care from the UNFPA clinic.   “I have been eating and breastfeeding without any trouble,” she said.   She makes it a habit to refer community members to both UNFPA’s and WFP’s services, which she says have helped alleviated some of the financial strains on their family.   “My husband Essam and I are now able to spend what little money we have saved to buy diapers and clothes for Jad,” she said, smiling. Visit the related web page
	Mexico’s lost generation of young girls by UN Women, Girls Not Brides, Insad, agencies   May 2017   Overwhelming majority’ of women experience some form of harassment, sexual violence in their daily journeys. (UN Women)   From rude comments and unwanted touching and groping to rape and murder, sexual violence and harassment has reached pandemic proportions, according to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), which recently launched a campaign in Mexico City to tackle the issue on public transport.   Studies show that a large majority of women worldwide have been victims of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence in public spaces; in Mexico City, a recent national survey found that nearly 90 per cent of women feel unsafe on buses and on the subway.   For Ana Güezmes, UN Women’s representative in Mexico, the figures point to nothing less than an epidemic. “From a very young age women experience sexual violence and harassment in public spaces, in transport, walking on the streets, and it consists of anything from rude words, unwanted touching, obscene glares, to rapes, murders and feminicide.”   The alarming data prompted UN Women, in partnership with the local government, to launch the campaign #NoEsDeHombres, which translates to “this is not what being a man is about.” The campaign promotes what the agency says is a more respectful form of masculinity.   Yeliz Osman, Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Programme Coordinator at UN Women in Mexico, notes that the capital is no different to other cities around the world. “The overwhelming majority of women who participated in focus groups said that they experience some form of sexual harassment in their daily journeys."   “These behaviours have been so normalized and naturalized within societies that women themselves don’t often consider it important enough to report and men don’t even realize in many cases that this is actually a form of violence and the impact that it has on women and girls.”   According to a survey on the issue carried out by the National Institute for Statistics and Geography, the forms of violence that were most frequently reported were offensive or sexualized comments (74 per cent), unwanted touching and groping (58 per cent) and fear of being assaulted or abused (14 per cent).   The fear women and girls feel ends up changing the way they live, Ms. Osman continued. “Women’s perceptions of their safety in Mexico City, as in many cities in the world, has an impact on decisions to go out at night or to take part in leisure activities; also women have to change the way they dress, they need to go out accompanied by other people, and that’s simply not acceptable.   “Women should be free to move around, to go to work, to go to school, free from constant harassment and violence,” she stressed.   The campaign targets men between the ages of 20 and 50 that use public transport on a daily basis, and was divided into two stages.   During the first stage, the Mexico City Metro was strategically used to undertake social experiments that were filmed and made into two videos which challenge the normalization of sexual violence by placing men in situations that give them an idea of what women experience in their daily lives.   The videos were then released with the goal of generating empathy and creating change in male attitudes and behaviours. To date, the videos have been viewed more than 10 million times on social network platforms, reaching more than 108 million users on Twitter with the hashtag #NoEsDeHombres.   The second stage consists of posters that aim to raise awareness of the sexual violence experienced by women and girls on public transport every day and seek to deter men from committing these acts by informing them of the possible sanctions for sexual violence. At the same time, women were encouraged to report incidents. The posters were placed in different public spaces including the metro, buses and under bridges.   This is the first time that UN Women and Mexico City have implemented such an innovative campaign that targets men, the objective of which is to create relationships between men and women that are more equal and free of violence.   “Sexual harassment is almost considered a natural part of male behaviour and we need to transform the notion that it’s natural,” stated Ms. Osman. “It’s not natural and not all men harass women, not all men are violent. We don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes about what is to be a man or a woman.   “However, what we are trying to say is that there are forms of masculinity that are less harmful, more positive, more respectful towards women, and more equal. That’s what we are trying to promote: a masculinity that is based on women’s rights and equality.”   While the campaign #NoEsDeHombres was created specifically for Mexico, UN Women’s global flagship initiative “Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces,” which was launched in 2010 with the goal of preventing and responding to sexual violence against women and girls in public spaces, has a growing list of champion cities.   These include Cairo, New Delhi, Kigali, Port Moresby, Quito, Cape Town, Rabat, Marrakech, Quezon City, Guatemala City, Medellin, Dushanbe, Maputo, Tegucigalpa, Dublin, Winnipeg, Reykjavik, Sakai, New York, and Brussels.   According to UN Women, studies showed that 43 per cent of young women in London experienced some form of street harassment in 2011; over 90 per cent of women and girls in Port Moresby have experienced some form of sexual violence when accessing public transportation; and 55 per cent of women in Kigali reported that they were concerned about going to educational institutions after dark.   As part of the “Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces” initiative, cities commit to identify gender-responsive, locally relevant and owned interventions; to develop and implement laws and policies to prevent and respond to the issue of sexual violence in public spaces; to invest in the safety and economic viability of public spaces and to change attitudes and behaviours to promote women’s and girls’ rights to enjoy public spaces free from violence. http://bit.ly/2rxBVT8 http://globalvoices.org/2019/02/27/mexican-women-protest-for-their-lives-as-kidnaps-and-femicides-surge/   May 2017   Mexico’s lost generation of young girls robbed of innocence and education, writes Hannah Summers.   Hundreds of thousands of young girls across Mexico are being driven into relationships and marriages with older men, denying them a childhood and an education, new research reveals.   Of the 320,000-plus Mexican girls between the ages of 12 and 17 who are cohabiting, nearly 70% are with a partner who is at least 11 years their senior, according to a report commissioned by the Ford Foundation.   The data represents part of a wider trend across Latin America, the only region in the world where child marriage is increasing rather than in decline.   Researchers found that 83% of married girls had left school, with the number rising to 92% among those living informally with a man. In contrast, just 15% of Mexican girls not in such relationships dropped out of school.   The findings, due to be published next month by a Mexico City-based research group, also show that 25,000 girls aged between 12 and 14 are living in “early unions”.   The report comes weeks after the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, issued a statement pledging to tackle child marriage in Latin America. “With one in five girls married or living in informal unions before the age of 18 we are losing entire generations to poverty, discrimination and violence,” he said.   In Mexico, more than 10% of girls are married under the age of 15. Worldwide, the country has the eighth highest number of child marriages.   While many girls are driven into relationships as a means of acquiring status and security – or to attempt to escape poverty and violence at home – early unions often perpetuate a cycle of abuse and deprivation rooted in gender inequality.   A law introduced in Mexico in 2014 set the minimum legal age for marriage at 18 for both men and women, but many states do not comply, or make exceptions. In some areas, civil guidance states the minimum age is 14 for girls and 16 for boys.   Neither does legislation address the larger problem of young girls cohabiting with older men in a non-formal context.   Across Mexico, 81% of marriages among girls aged 12 to 17 years old are not recognised legally, according to the report by Investigacion en Salud y Demografia (Insad).   Using data from national household surveys conducted in 2015, researchers studied girls across several age groups, either married or living with a partner.   They found that most girls aged between 12 and 17 were at least six years younger than their partner or husband; 65-69% were at least 11 years younger. Less than a fifth were with a partner who was five or less years older.   Heather Hamilton, deputy executive director for the charity Girls Not Brides, said: “You have a situation where a girl is perhaps choosing to be in a union, but only because she lacks other options.   “Perhaps there is a desire to escape poverty or a violent home environment. But we don’t want a world in which girls are forced to make the least bad choice.”   Hamilton said cultural factors also contributed to the abuse of young women. “Regionally, there is a strong perception that if you have a younger woman you are more masculine. But it’s also about control – the younger the girl, the more you can control her.”   Insad’s report on early unions in Mexico found that, even when a girl claimed to be in an early union through choice, her partner was usually the one with the power and resources. The study also concluded that “many girls enter unions not because they are pregnant but for other reasons”.   Hamilton said the data challenged the widespread belief in Latin America that teen pregnancy is behind high rates of child marriage: “The research finds this isn’t necessarily the case, at least not in half of the cases in Mexico.”   Married girls and those living with an older man are more likely than their single peers to suffer violence, sexually transmitted infections and other health complications.   While one in four girls in Mexico will enter into a union before the age of 18, the rate is more than 30% in some states, including Chiapas and Guerrero. The rate was also much higher in rural areas.   Estela Rivero, one of the report’s co-authors, said: “There is significant variation across the country. Early unions are highly prevalent and still normalised in many areas of Mexico.”   She said that, given the high number of informal unions, the government must recognise that legal restrictions on child marriage fall short of tackling the issue.   “The government must guarantee all women have access to education beyond secondary level and that girls and their families are motivated to continue with schooling,” Rivero said.   “Actions are also needed to change society’s perception of what is expected from women. Our research found many girls enter into early unions as they perceive it to be what is required of them or it is their best option to gain status in the community.”   The fact that child marriage is something more associated with Asia and Africa, means it has been difficult to engage decision-makers, said Hilary Anderson, of the Inter-American Commission of Women. “So studies like these are enormously useful because they provide concrete evidence that this really is a problem in the Americas as well,” she said.   The UN has warned that the rising rate of child marriage in Latin America – the only part of the world that has not seen a decline in the last 30 years – should act as a “silent alarm” for the region’s leaders.   http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/mexico/ http://www.girlsnotbrides.org/news/ http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/latin-america-and-caribbean-decade-lost-ending-child-marriage   * Investigacion en Salud y Demografia (Insad) report http://bit.ly/2pNGGH5
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