Three Women, Three Countries, And A Global Crisis

Via EL PAÍS: The world is rearming and humanitarian aid is collapsing. Tamanna, Hamada and Carmen Elena live in three countries hit by the unprecedented crisis shaking the humanitarian sector and have felt the shock of the global upheaval firsthand. Like them, millions of women in the Global South feel the sting of decisions made in offices thousands of kilometers away.

When the moral imperative of humanitarian aid that prevailed for decades collapses and conflict takes precedence over cooperation, they are the ones who suffer most. First, because poverty rates are higher among women, and they therefore depend more on humanitarian assistance; but above all because much of development cooperation focuses on issues that their governments often neglect, including maternal and child health, family planning, and programs addressing violence against women. And when crises intensify, girls are the first to be pulled out of school to work, or end up being sold or prostituted. And when funding for health fails to arrive and the sick cannot be treated, women are usually the ones who take on the burden of care, abandoning their life plans and even their own health.

One figure helps illustrate the severity of the current moment: 2025 is the year in which child mortality rose again for the first time in 25 years, partly due to the lack of resources for pregnant women. “What we are seeing now is the immediate impact. The long term is going to be devastating,” predicts Kellie Leeson of the Women’s Refugee Commission, whose organization has produced a detailed study on the impact of the cuts one year later. It notes, for example, that with the dismantling of USAID, 94% of U.S. funding for sexual and reproductive health was eliminated. The Guttmacher Institute estimates 17 million unintended pregnancies resulting from the cuts in just one year.