In Tikari: a depot holder of stories and secrets
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
June 22, 2022 | Anubha Bhonsle
‘It all started after my uterus was removed’
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
March 25, 2022 | Jyoti Shinoli
‘I didn’t want others to know I had miscarried’
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
March 10, 2022 | Urvashi Sarkar
‘They grope me when they give my medicines’
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
February 21, 2022 | Shalini Singh
RMPs in Jharkhand: a ‘healing’ driven by trust
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
February 3, 2022 | Jacinta Kerketta
The last few birthing mothers of Melghat
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
January 28, 2022 | Kavitha Iyer
In UP: male nasbandi – ‘not even an option’
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
January 10, 2022 | Jigyasa Mishra
In Madhubani, girls are born but not certified
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
October 27, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
In UP: ‘Our village lives in another era’
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
October 11, 2021 | Priti David
Three daughters? Then have two sons at least
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
September 29, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
Caught in a copper-T web: ‘The pain didn’t stop’
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
September 14, 2021 | Sanskriti Talwar
‘It feels like the men are always watching us’
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
August. 31, 2021 | Kavitha Iyer
‘Wish I had known there's cancer in the water’
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
August 25, 2021 | Kavitha Iyer
In Bihar: 7 home childbirths, grandma at 36
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
August 18, 2021 | Kavitha Iyer
‘I don’t want my daughters to end up like me’
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
July 23, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
Kadugolla women: quarantined every month
Fear of divine wrath and social stigma force postpartum and menstruating women of Karnataka’s Kudgollla community to segregate under trees and in shacks – despite a law, campaigns and individual resistance
July 5, 2021 | Tamanna Naseer
‘I am not a marriageable woman’
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
June 15, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
How baby Mrutyunjay was born in Malkangiri
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
June 4, 2021 | Jayanti Buruda
In Bihar: 'I got married during corona'
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
May 7, 2021 | Kavitha Iyer
In Madhubani: surreptitiously seeking a change
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?
April 13, 2021 | Kavitha Iyer
Bihar’s ‘lady’ doctors: overworked, shouted at
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
April 7, 2021 | Anubha Bhonsle
‘I have nine girls and this tenth one – a boy’
For women of the Bharard 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
April 1, 2021 | Pratishtha Pandya
'He says if I keep studying, who will marry me?'
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
March 29, 2021 | Amruta Byatnal
'Our office and sleeping area are the same
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
March 26, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
Declared dead in womb, birth certified next day
At a PHC in Bihar’s Vaishali district, the ultrasound machine is home to spiders, the staff demands money, and told a family their unborn baby was dead – making them rush to a private clinic at great cost
February 22, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
Decrepit health centres, 'bina-degree' doctors
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
February 15, 2021 | Anubha Bhonsle and Vishnu Singh
In Almora, moving mountains for childbirth
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
February 11, 2021 | Jigyasa Mishra
A coerced sterilisation, a senseless death
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
November 20, 2020 | Anubha Bhonsle
‘Clients even in my ninth month of pregnancy’
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
October 15, 2020 | Jigyasa Mishra
'How did my wife develop an infection?'
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
September 3, 2020 | Anubha Bhonsle and Sanskriti Talwar
‘The doctor says my bones have become hollow’
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
July 2, 2020 | Medha Kale
'My kaat [uterus] keeps coming out'
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
June 17, 2020 | Jyoti Shinoli
‘The doctors advised a womb removal surgery’
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
June 09, 2020 | Medha Kale
'After some 12 children it stops on its own'
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
May 20, 2020 | Anubha Bhonsle and Sanskriti Talwar
Locked-down schoolgirls: no basic needs, period
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
May 12, 2020 | Jigyasa Mishra
Counting cows, not rural health indicators
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
May 8, 2020 | Anubha Bhonsle and Pallavi Prasad
In the Nilgiris, an inheritance of malnutrition
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
May 1, 2020 | Priti David
'For that grandson, we had four children'
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
April 21, 2020 | Anubha Bhonsle and Sanskriti Talwar
'Now my goats are like my children'
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
April 13, 2020 | Jyoti Shinoli
'Last year, only one man agreed to a vasectomy'
'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
March 18, 2020 | Amruta Byatnal
'They are just given a pill and sent away'
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
March 11, 2020 | Priti David
'End of bother' – Neha gets a nasbandi
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
February 28, 2020 | Anubha Bhonsle
Koovalapuram's curious guesthouse
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
February 20, 2020 | Kavitha Muralidharan
