Under the narrow shade of our umbrellas, a community health worker from a local NGO and I walked along a dirt path to the edge of some paddy fields in a village in Tamil Nadu, South India in the summer of 2015. There we met a group of Dalit (oppressed-caste) women who were squeezed together under a clump of trees on a small strip of raised land between two fields.

The summer of 2015 was one of the hottest on record in South India at that time, with temperatures consistently above 40ºC (104ºF) every day. Rains which should have begun to arrive had not come by mid-July. These women were hoping to be called for daily agricultural wage labor in the fields, and they had taken refuge under the shade while they waited. They had been waiting all morning with no work available; it had been the same for several days because there was a drought and the crops were failing.

In 2022, the Dot-Mom column published several pieces from expert guest authors from the greater maternal and reproductive health community. In our top read guest contributor piece of the year, Susie Jolly examined the role of colonialism in sexuality education globally. Jolly highlighted examples where sexual health knowledge is built on unethical medical research carried out on racialized people, such as the study of untreated syphilis among Black men in the United States. Sexuality educators, especially those placed in the Global North, have a responsibility to work to decolonize their work. Jolly suggests supporting resources led by marginalized people, critically examining colonialism’s influence in the understanding of sexuality, and shifting the dynamics of who decides on content to lend more weight to non-Western expertise and young people learning from their own experiences.

Go to the Arkansas Rice Festival in Wiener, Arkansas and you will discover how delicious – and diversely flavored – this cereal grain can be. Savory, sweet, or even spicy: Each dish at the festival’s annual rice recipe contest shows the many ways to prepare this international food staple.

Why look to Arkansas for rice? The state produces 4 million tons of it every year, which is nearly half the rice grown in the United States.  But that U.S. annual total is dwarfed by the amount produced by China, which at 207 million tons is the world’s largest rice producer.  It’s also natural that the world looks to China for rice; genomic mapping has suggested that cultivated rice was first grown in the Pearl River valley in southern China.

The Population Institute’s recent report, Invisible Threads: Addressing the root causes of migration from Guatemala by investing in women and girls, has brought attention to the numerous factors that drive migration in Guatemala. One of the key factors addressed in the report is climate change, which is linked closely to issues concerning land in that country. To this day, multiple generations of indigenous women endure the effects of land displacement and inequities in access to land—as well as related social and economic pressures. In concert with other political, social, and economic problems, this particular challenge has resulted in large outflows of migrants from the region.

Migrant care work is a key component of the ongoing global care crisis. The global care economy is critical to overall economic growth, and also affects gender, racial, and class and caste equity and empowerment. Caregiving is also the fastest-growing economic sector in the world—projected to add 150 million jobs by 2030. Global societal changes, like low birth rates, demographic aging, and an increase in female labor force participation, are basic drivers of the continued growth of this sector. But because in many cultures care work is considered “instinctive” for women—a type of work not requiring skill—it has remained virtually invisible, unpaid or underpaid and unregulated. It is also often stigmatized, especially when relegated to already marginalized and underrepresented populations.

Abortion restrictions may create obstacles for legal access, but they do nothing to eliminate the need for life-saving reproductive healthcare. And when there is a lack of licit opportunities to obtain that care, patients find pathways to get it through alternative networks.

For instance, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision in June 2022 reversed a decades-long precedent protecting the constitutional right to an abortion, social media and online forums were filled with reactions and resources alike. Among these interventions were viral posts circulated offering to host anyone going on a “camping” trip in a state with legally protected reproductive rights. These “camping trip” posts alluded to a willingness to aid and abet individuals traveling for abortions in states with legally-protected access—and they captured the complications and conflicts embedded in these responses to the ruling.

On July 28, 2022 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted—by a count of 161 in favor, with 8 abstentions — that living in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a human right. Building on the similar declaration by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2021, the UNGA has now reinforced the notion that the growing assaults on human health through environmental hazards are transgressions against the basic rights and freedoms of people.

COVID-19 has dealt out a double dose of woe for global maternal health. According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the pandemic saw an increase in maternal deaths and an exacerbation of racial disparities driving this overall morbidity. In addition, childbearing people experienced significant anxiety and depression.