How has the DRC Ebola outbreak impacted Sexual and Reproductive Health in North-Kivu?

Escalated violence in their native Burundi forced them to flee. For pregnant women, the increased uncertainty for the future is all the more stressful.

Family planning is one of the most life-saving and empowering interventions in health. Yet misguided assumptions are restricting it from the women and girls who need it most.

Three years ago Ahnaw* collapsed on the floor of her house in a small rural village in eastern Myanmar. When she came to, she realised she was bleeding heavily from what turned out to be a miscarriage. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant,” the 36-year-old recalls, seated in front of a Buddhist shrine in her living room. “They told me when I got to the hospital. They said I was lucky to survive.” As a result of her experience, Ahnaw is now part of an International Rescue Committee programme that trains hundreds of women in Myanmar’s Kayin state to become advocates for birth-spacing and safe pregnancies. These “mother support groups” spread their messages in village gatherings or by going door-to-door, targeting families with many children or young families with children born in quick succession.

Women and girls make up half of all refugees and people displaced by crisis worldwide, and an estimated 225 million women living in developing countries are in need of contraception.

As the Family Planning Summit in London approaches, we listen to the stories of four women supported by the IRC in four different countries, who explain why they chose to use family planning services, and what it has meant for them to have access to contraception.