HARGEISA - Asha Ali Ibrahim, 41, has been performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls in Diaami, Hargeisa and other parts of Somalia since 1997. July and August are her busiest months of the year. "This is the peak season, when parents bring their children to be cut," she told UNFPA.    More

NAMPULA CITY, Mozambique - "Some adolescent girls will leave school to marry for money," 21-year-old Edma told UNFPA. "Some are engaging in unsafe sexual behaviours, unaware of the risks and their rights." Edma sees these realities every day. And she has made it her mission to change things: She has become a mentor.    More

AHUACHAPÁN, El Salvador - "I could have died the day my son was born," said Evelyn*, who became pregnant when she was only 13. Her pregnancy was complicated, and she spent most of the time bedridden and in constant discomfort. During her pregnancy, Evelyn had a variety of severe complications, including gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.    More

The stairwell is the only place they could find with enough space and seclusion for them to study - just one example of their determination to overcome the odds and achieve academic success.    More

SAYED KHEL, Pakistan - "It was seven in the morning, and I had not yet started my working day, when Hafsa* was brought to the clinic with normal labour pains," said Mahbooba, a 27-year-old midwife who runs the Aqtash clinic in Afghanistan's rural Sayed Khel District.    More

Women continue to be disproportionately affected by drug use, and face obstacles in accessing treatment, compared to men, according to the President of the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).    More

DAMASCUS, Syria - Ruqayya was pregnant when she fled the embattled city of Deir ez-Zor, in north-eastern Syria, with her husband and two young children. The family took refuge in Al-Areesheh camp, in Al-Hasakah Governorate - but Ruqayya's ordeal was not yet over.    More

The importance of reversing the tragedies of violence, particularly against women and children, and ensuring that women's and girl's voices are heard in all aspects of society are at the core of the second leg of a high-level United Nations-African Union (AU) mission to Africa, which today visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).    More

Rome — Over the past three years, IOM Italy has seen an almost 600 per cent increase in the number of potential sex trafficking victims arriving in Italy by sea. This upward trend has continued during the first six months of 2017, with most victims arriving from Nigeria.    More

The United Nations migration agency today said that perhaps 80 per cent of Nigerian migrant women and girls arriving on Europe's shores in Italy could potentially be sex trafficking victims, spotlighting the horrific levels of abuse and violence migrants face along their arduous journeys for a better future.    More

KAMPONG CHAM, Cambodia - Women in Cambodia's Kampong Cham Province are no strangers to violence. A staggering 33 per cent of women in the province have experienced physical violence since age 15, a 2014 survey revealed. Statistics for the whole of Cambodia are not much better.    More

CAVITE, Philippines - Seven months ago, Mae Esparcia, 30, gave birth to her first child, Maria Carmen. After her delivery, Ms. Esparcia, a garments factory worker at Hamlin Industrial Corp. in Cavite, Philippines, decided to start using contraceptive pills, which she received for free - from her workplace.    More