Is Getting Pregnant “Medically Necessary” Right Now?
Tens of thousands patients' fertility treatments have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Should IVF treatments be considered essential?
Pregnant Black women navigate two public health crises during COVID-19 in Milwaukee
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare a 'perfect storm' of health inequalities that further risk pregnant Black women's lives.
The Pandemic’s Hidden Human Trafficking Crisis
For anyone familiar with the mechanisms and methods that drive trafficking, it’s obvious why rates of exploitation spike during international crises.
‘Don’t Have to Fight for Pennies’: New Zealand Safety Net Helps Sex Workers in Lockdown
The week before New Zealand went into full lockdown on 26 March, Lana*, 28, had taken a break from work at the high-end Wellington brothel where, since September, she had made around NZ$2,200 a month…
‘Grammie’s Taking Food to Other People’: A Trucker Keeps Trucking
Ingrid Brown loves the peace of the night, especially these days. When the sun sets, it’s just her and the road, her truck lights illuminating the highway stretching out ahead. The quiet is “like a…
Sex Workers’ Dilemma amid Covid-19
At 6:30pm every evening, Emelda Ngieno’s alarm clock buzzes her out of a deep sleep. As the sun sets, she gets up, throws on tonight’s chosen outfit and heads to her designated location: Pipeline, a…
Iran’s Nurses Are Martyrs to Trump’s Maximum Pressure
Dozens of nurses have been infected with COVID-19, in part as a result of restrictions imposed by the Trump administration.
Experts Apply Lessons From Ebola to Ensure Girls Return to School Post-Pandemic
In April of 2015, after Ebola ravaged Sierra Leone and paralyzed West Africa, schools finally began reopening. Thousands of children eagerly returned to school after nine months stuck at home, but 13-year-old Isatu and her…
‘The Reality Is, It’s Incredibly Hard’
Shelly Hughes’s typical day starts at 9 p.m. She’s used to not wanting to get out of bed and go to work, but now the feeling is much stronger. Her son, home from college because…
‘There’s No Backup’: Single Moms on Quarantining with Kids
I started taking the pandemic seriously when schools closed. I’ve never seen day-to-day life change so drastically for so many Americans. Friends began posting pictures with their kids online, with #homeschooling. I couldn’t help but…
Coronavirus Locks Down the Philippines, but Children Face Threat of Online Abuse
Wearing pajamas and a pair of plastic slip-on shoes, the 12-year-old girl crouched in a doorway and texted a friend to say she’d run away. It was raining, and the mud stuck to her flip-flops…
Coronavirus threatens an already strained maternal health system
On Wednesday, March 18, 28-year-old Latoyha Young and her mother, Thomasina Hayten, rushed to Sutter Health Hospital in Sacramento, believing that Young was in labor. Hospital staff sent her home — she wasn’t far enough…
For Abused Women, a Pandemic Lockdown Holds Dangers of Its Own
Early last week, as the novel coronavirus exploded from state to state, a woman called the National Domestic Violence Hotline in a crisis: Her partner had tried to strangle her and she needed medical help,…
When You’re Pregnant During a Pandemic
On February 27, I summited Mount Kilimanjaro and immediately had a desperate urge to pee. I should have known then, squatting in the snow next to the sign marking the summit, that I was pregnant.…
“I’m Homeless—How Can I Self-Quarantine?”
Across from two of the tall, unnervingly skinny palm trees Los Angeles is known for, there is a light blue bungalow in a row of neat, single-story structures. After a historically dry winter, the city…
‘You Are Beautiful’: the Kenyan Beauty Parlour Serving Female Heroin Users
Naima Said stands back and studies her handiwork. “Not quite,” the self-taught beauty therapist mumbles, her forehead furrowed in frustration. Then she delicately dabs her client’s eyelid with a squishy makeup sponge. She’s not finished…
Why the Coronavirus Outbreak Could Hit Women Hardest
Women disproportionately hold jobs in industries with poor protections.
Meet Beauty Therapist Saving Female Heroin Addicts
Housed in the Reachout Centre Trust, which helps Mombasa residents fight drug addiction, it opened last year with a view to attracting more female users to its services that include HIV testing, counselling, methadone treatment…
