PARI series on women's health

Women in the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands struggle to find a safe solution for menstrual waste disposal on an island that has little space and even less infrastructure to deal with it. A story on Menstrual Hygiene Day

In Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, menstrual stigma forces women of the Madia community into exile. Staying isolated in crumbling and unsanitary ‘kurma ghar’ severely affects their physical and mental health

Pregnant women in an isolated village of Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipore district struggle with erratic power supply and poor public healthcare facilities. Their only hope is an old dai in the village

In Murshidabad district, it is the poorest women who roll beedis – a physically punishing job. The constant exposure to tobacco from a young age puts their general and reproductive health at great risk

In Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district, women speak about the deep prejudices and hardships that are forced on them during menstruation and childbirth

Women in Himachal Pradesh’s rural areas continue to face challenges to their maternal health and well-being in the absence of accessible medical services and fully functional community health centres

Low wages and 'starvation diets' adversely affect women's well-being in this village in Haveri district. And the absence of toilets in their colony is proving worse for those who suffer poor menstrual health

With their menfolk away, working as migrant workers in Surat and other places, the ‘left-behind’ women of a Gameti community in Udaipur district are making contraception and health care decisions by themselves

Sunita Devi wanted a safe and easy way to stop having more children, but after a copper-T failed, she was forced to go from a PHC to a private facility to governmental hospitals in Delhi and Bihar to get an abortion

Armed with a bag of contraceptives and condoms, Kalavati Soni is a trusted friend to women of Tikari village in Amethi district. Her informal conversations keep the message of reproductive rights alive here

In Beed district, where a large numbers of female sugarcane workers underwent hysterectomies, women are silently coping with post-surgery anxiety, depression, physical ailments and strained marital relations

Their river water is more saline, the summers hotter, and accessible public healthcare is a distant dream. These factors together have trapped women in a maze of health problems in the Sundarbans

Exploited and humiliated by hospital staff, their confidentiality violated, sex workers’ unique stigma limits their ability to access healthcare even in capital Delhi. The pandemic has pushed them further to the edge

A ramshackle healthcare system, along with infrastructure challenges in the interior villages of Pashchimi Singhbhum district, make 'Rural Medical Practitioners’ indispensable – and health a matter of faith

In the Adivasi settlements around Maharashtra’s Melghat tiger reserve, dais like Ropi and Charku have for decades handled home deliveries. But both are elderly and there is no one to carry forward their legacy

For Musahar women in UP’s Varanasi district, what worsens the deprivation dogging their lives is not just a lack of access to health services but the history of stigmatisation restricting their choices

Women from poor families in Bihar’s Madhubani district face hurdles when accessing health services at the best of times. So when petty corruption surfaces in the few systems that serve them at all, they’re helpless

The story of Sonu and Meena, who will soon be married though they’ve barely entered their teens, is also that of many other menstruating girls from Dalit hamlets in rural Prayagraj

Women from different backgrounds in Bihar’s Gaya district share an existence of penury, poor access to education, and lack of control over their lives, placing their health and well-being at constant risk

When Deepa left a hospital in Delhi after childbirth, she was not aware a copper-T had been inserted into her. Two years later, when the pain and bleeding began, doctors couldn't locate the device for months

Locked public toilets, faraway blocks, curtained cubicles, a lack of privacy for bathing or sanitary disposal, night-time treks to railway tracks – are all daily hurdles for girls from migrant families in Patna’s slums

In villages of Bihar with arsenic in groundwater, families like Preeti's have lost both men and women to cancer, and she too has a breast lump. But women here often face greater challenges in seeking treatment

Shanti Manjhi has given birth to seven kids at home in her Musahar hamlet in Bihar's Sheohar district. Few here have access to health services and most don’t know if there is a PHC that helps with deliveries

Child and adolescent brides in Bihar’s Patna district have no choice but to keep producing babies until they deliver a boy. For them, social custom and prejudice override laws and legal pronouncements

Fear of divine wrath and social stigma force postpartum and menstruating women of Karnataka’s Kadugolla community to segregate under trees and in shacks – despite a law, campaigns and individual resistance

Sex workers in the Chaturbhuj Sthan brothel of Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, who often go through pregnancies at an early age to please their ‘permanent’ clients, were badly hit by the Covid-19 lockdowns

In Adivasi hamlets in a reservoir area of Odisha's Malkangiri, amid thick forests, high hills, and the state-militant conflict, erratic boat services and broken roads are the only ways to reach sparse health facilities

In Bihar's villages, during the lockdown last year, teenage girls were married off to young male migrant workers who returned home. Many are now pregnant and anxious about what comes next

A decade ago, Bihar's Hasanpur village mostly bypassed family planning. Now, women often approach healthcare volunteers Salah and Shama for an injectable contraceptive. What brought about this shift?

For the few female gynaecologists working in Bihar's Kishanganj district, the day is long, medical supplies are short, and handling their patients' multiple pregnancies and contraception reluctance is an uphill task

For women of the Bharwad pastoralist community in Dholka taluka of Gujarat, the pressure to have sons and few family planning options mean contraception choices and reproductive rights are mere words

In Bihar's Samastipur district, teenage girls from Mahadalit communities face social stigma and even physical force to drop their education, give up their dreams, and get married – some try to resist, others give in

Shortage of space and lack of facilities compel health workers in a primary health centre in Bihar’s Darbhanga district to sleep in the office, on ward beds, and sometimes even on the floor

At a PHC in Bihar’s Vaishali district, the ultrasound machine is home to spiders, the staff demands money, and tells a family their unborn baby is dead – making them rush to a private clinic at great cost

An understaffed PHC where wild animals wander in, fears about hospitals, poor phone connectivity – all ensure that pregnant women in Bihar’s Baragaon Khurd village invariably deliver at home

Last year, Rano Singh of Uttarakhand’s Almora district gave birth on the road, halfway uphill to a hospital, in a region where the terrain and expenses compel many in the mountain hamlets to deliver at home

Bhavna Suthar of Rajasthan's Bansi village died after a sterilisation procedure at a 'camp' last year that flouted norms and gave her no time to consider options. Her husband Dinesh is still seeking justice

With four miscarriages, an alcoholic husband, and the loss of her factory job, Delhi-based Honey turned to sex work when pregnant a fifth time, and has lived with an STD since. Now, in lockdown, she struggles to earn

An infection after a sterilisation set off three years of pain, a bewildering runaround of hospitals, growing debt, and eventually a hysterectomy for 27-year-old Susheela Devi of Rajasthan’s Dausa district

After a lifetime of illness and surgeries, including a uterus removal, Bibabai Loyare of Hadashi village in Pune district is bent and sunken. Still, she continues to do farm work and looks after a paralytic husband

Bhil women with a prolapsed uterus cannot access medical facilities in Maharashtra's Nandurbar district. They struggle with no road or mobile connectivity, unrelenting hard labour and excruciating pain

The sexual and reproductive health rights of intellectually disabled women are often violated through forced hysterectomies. But in Maharashtra's Wadi village, Malan More is lucky to have had the support of her mother

In Haryana’s Biwan village, access to contraception among the Meo Muslims is uphill due to cultural factors, inaccessible health services and indifferent providers – trapping women in a cycle of childbirth

With schools shut, girls from poor families in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district have lost access to free sanitary napkins and are turning to risky options. In UP alone, the numbers of such girls runs to millions

Underpaid and over-burdened with endless surveys, reports and tasks, Sunita Rani and other ASHA workers of Haryana’s Sonipat district struggle to attend to the reproductive health needs of rural families

Mothers with almost no haemoglobin, two-years-olds weighing 7 kilos, alcoholism, low incomes and falling access to the forest are spurring acute malnutrition amongst Adivasi women in Gudalur, Tamil Nadu

The women of Harsana Kalan village in Haryana, around 40 kilometres from Delhi, describe their struggles to achieve some control over their own lives and reproductive choices in the face of male hostility

Bhil women from the Dhadgaon region in Maharashtra's Nandurbar district struggle with stigma, social exclusion and a rural healthcare system that fails to provide effective treatment for infertility

'Male engagement' in family planning is a buzzword, but the Vikas Mitras and ASHA workers of Bihar report little success in convincing men to undergo sterilisation, and contraception continues to be left to women

The well-equipped primary health centres in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district remain out of reach for many Adivasi women, who turn to unqualified practitioners for potentially dangerous abortions and deliveries

A ‘nasbandi day’ has replaced sterilisation camps after a 2016 SC order, but it's still mainly women who undergo surgeries – and many in UP do so without any other choice of modern contraception methods

In Koovalapuram and four other villages of Madurai district, menstruating women continue to be isolated in 'guesthouses'. No one challenges the discrimination, fearing the wrath of the gods and humans