In June 1969, the Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan served as a critical tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. Each June, communities around the world celebrate Pride Month to honor this struggle and continue fighting for a more equal future. More than 50 years after Stonewall, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning (LGBTQ+)* people in the United States struggle to access culturally competent and respectful sexual and reproductive health care.

“From birth, from almost from cradle to grave, girls have been seen as some sort of baggage,” said Shamsa Suleiman, Project Management Specialist for Gender and Youth at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Tanzania. Suleiman spoke at a recent Wilson Center event with USAID MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership about balancing power dynamics to achieve equity for all women and children in maternal, child, and adolescent health, and family planning. Home should be a safe space, said Suleiman. But for many girls, it no longer is. To escape the poverty and pressures at home, including early marriage and other forms of gender-based violence, some girls leave, said Suleiman. “Girls are trying to escape the safe spaces.”

“Every day in every part of the world, midwives save the lives of women and babies and promote the health and well-being of entire communities,” writes UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem in honor of International Day of the Midwife. “They deserve our respect and gratitude, but that is not enough. Midwives deserve greater investment in their capabilities, and workplaces that empower them and fully acknowledge their skills and contributions.” Investment in midwifery could save millions of lives per year – an estimated 4.3 million annually by 2035.

“As we’re talking, the bodily autonomy of millions of women and girls around the world is still denied,” said Klaus Simoni Pedersen, Acting Director of the Division of Communications and Strategic Partnerships for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at the recent U.S. launch event of the 2021 UNFPA State of the World Population report, hosted by the Wilson Center and UNFPA. The report, My Body is My Own: Claiming the Right to Autonomy and Self-Determination, examines the global status of women and girls as reflected in their agency and decision-making power.

“This week is Black Maternal Health Week, and make no mistake, Black women in our country are facing a maternal health crisis. Black women are two to three times more likely to die in connection with childbirth than other women. We know the primary reasons why—systemic racial inequities and implicit bias,” said Vice President Kamala Harris at a White House Roundtable she hosted with Ambassador Susan Rice in honor of Black Maternal Health Week. The event was the first event of its kind at the White House—Black women who have experienced loss and complications during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum were invited to share their experiences and their work in Black maternal health advocacy and research.

“The pandemic has undoubtedly resulted in more deaths and more illness – particularly for the most vulnerable women and children,” write the authors of a new United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) report examining the direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia. The report found that the disruptions in several essential health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic had a “substantial impact” on maternal and child mortality in the region.

Joyce Makasi, a young woman in Kambiti village, Kitui County, Kenya, went into labor with her second child one afternoon in December 2020. She had just enough money to hire a motorbike to take her to nearby Waita health center. At the facility, the clinical officer and nurse told her she would need a cesarean delivery. It wouldn’t be her first cesarean, but COVID-19 presented new obstacles.