Rikha Sharma Rani Archives

Rikha Sharma Rani

This Nurse is Leading the Fight for Safer Hospitals

“As a nurse, there are just times when it’s very intuitive. You just sense that something catastrophic is going to happen.” Bonnie Castillo, the executive director of National Nurses United In early January, before most…

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Imagine Online School in a Language You Don’t Understand

As COVID-19 shifts classrooms online, remote schooling poses a special challenge for families who are not fluent in English.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Worried About Abortion Laws? Catholic Hospital Mergers Also Seen as Threat to Women’s Health Care

Rules written by Catholic bishops ban procedures deemed “immoral” by the church, like abortion, contraception, in-vitro fertilization and tubal ligation.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Wisconsin’s Catholic Hospitals Limit Reproductive Procedures

In reproductive care, critics argue, Catholic ethics can trump medical best practice and patients can be denied the care they desire or need.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

When Catholic Hospitals Merge, Reproductive Services Can Change

In some cases, changes in hospital ownership broadened access to reproductive services in Wisconsin, in others, it restricted it

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Catholic Hospitals Often Only Choice For Women of Color in Milwaukee

Expectant mothers in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, have a wealth of hospitals to choose from, unlike some of their counterparts in rural areas. For the county’s black and Hispanic women, however, the choice is often a…

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Catholics Run One-Third of Wisconsin Hospitals, Putting Many Reproductive Procedures Off-Limits

When Ascension’s St. Joseph Hospital in Milwaukee announced it would cut back services in 2018, residents of the surrounding Sherman Park area balked. The predominantly black, low-income neighborhood already faced its share of challenges. Nearly…

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Homes to Heal Trafficked Children

In Miami, a program designed for trafficked foster youth is showing promise.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

How a Miami Judge Pioneered a New Way of Handling Minor Human Trafficking Cases

Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesias established the GRACE Court, one of the first trauma-informed courts for juvenile survivors of human trafficking.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

‘The Ones Nobody Misses’: Scope of Human Trafficking in Alabama Wider than Reported, Experts Say

Human trafficking is deeply misunderstood, and misconceptions allow traffickers to operate unnoticed—and often in plain sight.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Claira’s story: A ‘Broken, Normal’ Woman Preyed Upon by ‘Life’

More than 200 cases of sex or labor trafficking have been reported from Alabama to the national trafficking hotline since 2015.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

She was separated from her son for 9 months while seeking asylum. She’s still haunted by everything she missed.

"He’s never going to crawl for the first time again," says Mariana Ibarra Morán, who was separated from her son for 9 months.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

How Immigration Reporting Overlooks Women

Articles on immigration focused almost exclusively on border security, conflict and crisis. The absence of women’s voices from such coverage is striking.

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Trapped At the Border? Hope for a Female Judge

If you’re a migrant seeking asylum in the United States, hope for a female judge. According to an analysis of data from Syracuse University, which collected outcomes from asylum decisions made by 293 immigration judges…

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Weaponizing Children

In 1977, the public school system of Tyler, Texas, a small city 100 miles southeast of Dallas, began expelling students who couldn’t prove they were in the United States legally. The state had passed a law cutting…

by Rikha Sharma Rani

At the Texas-Mexico Border, Her Son Begged Not to be Taken. They Took Him Anyway.

‘I Felt My Heart Being Taken Away From Me,’ Says His Mother Valquiria had never spent a day apart from her 7-year-old son, B, until March, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) whisked the…

by Rikha Sharma Rani

Rikha Sharma Rani

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