I received a fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) to report on the intersection of malaria eradication and gender in Rwanda. During my three weeks in the country, I also focused on reproductive rights, including access to safe abortion.
(I wrote this blog post about a day in the field).
Rwanda’s front line health supporters – Al Jazeera English
In villages across Rwanda, the role of volunteer community health workers is crucial — they are helping educate and mobilise to save lives of women. They’ve contributed to the sharply declining maternal mortality rate as well as complications and deaths due to malaria. I tried to understand how they work and the challenges they face.
A longform narrative report.
Can Rwanda’s new abortion law make access safer? – ZORA Magazine
Although Rwandan women take up many leadership and economic roles, their reproductive choices are still bound by church and state. For this piece, I interviewed some women, among the 367 who were imprisoned for abortion and received the presidential pardon earlier in 2019, to understand the kind of challenges women face in accessing safe abortion care.
A longform narrative report.
Sarita Santoshini 