If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
After the First and Second World Wars, over sixty thousand military amputees came home. Three years later, Britain hosted the Olympics, and a small hospital in Buckinghamshire put on the world's first 'Wheelchair Games'. Now in 2012, the future of the British forces in Afghanistan is being decided.
Exploitation in the food industry is alive and well. That's according to the latest grim report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which studied the experiences of some of the migrant workers (almost invisibly) toiling in our fields, factories and restaurants.
As we head towards one more tacky but popular Eurovision final, will a spotlight also be shone onto the serious human rights abuses in Azerbaijan, this year's host?
The 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide was commemorated in April in Rwanda and around the world. Many proclamations were issued, expressions of sympathy made, and hopes for the future expressed.
Quantitative research on sexting varies but the statistics suggest that between 15 and 40% of young people are involved in sexting, depending on their age and the way sexting is measured.
Recent science analysis predicts that we are heading for between 4- 6°C of global warming. Such rapid change in our climate system will bring about profound and in some cases catastrophic damages. This is the stuff science fiction movies are made of: Storms and typhoons will be more frequent and will kill more lives and destroy more infrastructures.
We talk a lot about hidden carers, but the truth is they weren't hidden. They were right there. They probably don't call themselves carers, they're just looking after Uncle John.
At a women's shelter I saw some of the consequences of Afghanistan's ingrained patriarchy. I talked to a teenage girl married off to a 70-year-old man who then suffered sustained beatings at the hands of the man's family. I also heard from a young widow who explained how she'd escaped her father-in-law who wanted to force her into marriage after her first husband had died.
I've long thought that the editors of our international media (and the British media is a particular culprit) needs to start noticing Africa. Not just the coups and the food crises and the droughts, but also the positive stories, the African success stories that are putting, for example, Ghana amid the fast growing nations in the world.
As representatives of the World Health Organization Member States arrive in Geneva this week for the 65th World Health Assembly, I feel a cautious optimism about the future, and the future health of Africa. With two female heads of state in Africa - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia and Joyce Banda in Malawi - women's health and gender equality are no longer marginalised, they have become central to a nation's potential for development and prosperity. National level attention to women's health and opportunity has become the standard against which our collective progress is judged.
Next Tuesday, The Journalism Foundation will host a gala event to benefit the Foundation's work supporting free and ethical journalism around the world.
I was born the month that parliament voted equal pay for women. Even now the Equality and Human Rights Act (EHRC) estimates that my daughters may earn £361,000 less than men over their working life. But there is hope for my granddaughters.
HIV/Aids is no longer the death sentence it once was. But while millions of HIV positive people lead healthy and productive lives, we still have nine million people who still cannot access treatment. We also have a long way to go on preventing new infections.
On Wednesday frombabieswithlove.org went live and I can't help but reflect that starting my social enterprise has been rather like motherhood!
Each day millions of children wake up with an empty belly and a head aching with hunger. Many will eat just one unappetising meal whilst some will have nothing at all.
"I didn't know anything about sex, contraception or relationships when I left school, there was never anyone to ask who could explain properly to me in sign language. I didn't know how many sexual partners were 'normal'. When I left school and left home, I was raped by a man."
