Pakistan: No Time for Hand-Wringing
08/27/2010
Concern Worldwide Pakistan director warns the "second wave of death" is imminent
I can only offer my perspective as a first-hand witness. The deficient and delayed response is starting to exact its cost on the Pakistani people, especially the most vulnerable. In aid world jargon we speak of it as the ‘second-wave' of death, which sounds too abstract to register with most audiences. But its meaning is very plain. The lives of hundreds of thousands are at immediate risk. We have anecdotal evidence that children are already dying. If we don't act quickly, many, many more will die.
Why Help Pakistan?
08/27/2010
AmeriCares VP of emergency response, Ella Gudwin, weighs in
Deadly floods in Pakistan have sparked the latest crisis for this embattled country. Pakistan's worst flooding in 80 years has claimed at least 1,500 lives and left more than 4 million people homeless.
Under Water: Women’s Access to Reproductive Health Care in Pakistan
08/25/2010
Even in emergencies, women deliver babies and communities need reproductive health services blogs JSI's Meriwether Beatty
Even when services are available, seeking aid is especially difficult for women and girls in Pakistan where cultural norms often place shame on receiving medical care from males. The restricted mobility of women and proscriptions against male-female interactions have widened the rift between women and access to care, especially in a highly patriarchal society. Finances, reluctance to bring a woman to a hospital, a male's absence from the house, and inadequate referral services are all barriers to seeking care.
Pakistan Floods: Pulling People Back from the Brink
08/14/2010
Aid workers struggle to provide much-needed food and other supplies to villages only accessible by foot
Within Kohistan and Shangla, the hardest hit areas are accessible only by foot, so after trekking in, our local partners have been conducting rapid assessments in the districts. Information is coming out slowly as local phone service and mobile networks are down; aid workers have to walk back to the nearest road, get into cars and travel considerable distances to find working phones in order to report in.
Pakistan: Is Enormous Suffering Being Overlooked?
08/09/2010
An area the size of England has been devasted by flood waters, yet the international community has been slow to assist
It is monsoon season in Pakistan: rain is not unusual this time of year. But starting on Friday of last week, I watched with literal horror as unprecedented levels of extremely heavy, sustained rain poured down in the mountainous areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK) and other areas - triggering the worst floods ever recorded in Pakistan.
Sex Workers Deserve Rights Too
07/28/2010
Author Melissa Ditmore on the ramifications of PEPFAR's anti-prostitution policy on sex workers
Since 2003, U.S. government funding to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been subject to an anti-prostitution clause forbidding the "promotion of prostitution" by grant recipients. There are few published articles about the effects of PEPFAR's anti-prostitution policy requirement because discussing activities that are not clearly approved under the funding restrictions can jeopardize a program.
