H6 Annual Report 2015
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-32affea0-20d3-5d14-4210-30988435222b" style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">The H6 Joint Programme is a collaborative effort of H6 partners (UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, WHO and the World Bank) for accelerating improved maternal and child health in 10 countries with the highest maternal mortality and morbidity.&nbsp;</span></p>
Fifty years after a terrible childbirth injury, Kenyan woman gets a new lease on life
Decades ago, Jumwa Kabibu Kai was pregnant with her second child in the small village of Kidutani, Kenya. The area was poor and isolated – her nearest neighbour was 3 kilometres away – and there was no easy access to a health facility. But Ms. Kai did not know these circumstances would initiate “50 years of a long nightmare,” as she later described it.
2015 Annual Report of FGM Joint Programme: Metrics of Progress, Moments of Change
<p>The UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Accelerating Change started in 2008 and has just completed the first half of its Phase II implementation period (2014&ndash;2017). The programme seeks to contribute to the overall goal of the abandonment of female genital mutilation (FGM).</p>
The first rule of the married girls’ club is: empower girls
Fatuma was married off five years ago, when she was just 13. Like most girls from the remote Afar Region of Ethiopia, she had undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) when she was just a baby, and it was expected that her scars would open up during the wedding night.
Refugee mother and daughter fight rocketing rates of child marriage
“A girl I know from school here in the camp got married last year when she was 15,” Saba, 16, told UNFPA. Saba encouraged her friend to delay pregnancy until her body was more mature. But the pressure to have a child was too great. “Three months ago, she was pregnant with twins but had a miscarriage. I told her she should stop because her body isn’t ready yet, but she and her husband are adamant about having a child.”