United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

ILOILO, Philippines – “I was shocked when I found out I was pregnant,” said Gina*, now 19. At the time, she was a third-year high school student in Iloilo, a central province of the Philippines, and already six months into the pregnancy. “I'm happy and sad I gave birth because it's been hard,” she told UNFPA.

I am happy to learn of today's release of some of the girls who had been abducted by insurgents in Dapchi, Nigeria. Like their families and community, I am deeply concerned about their physical and emotional well-being after their ordeal. UNFPA remains committed to working with the Government to ...

UNITED NATIONS, New York/KHANKE and DOHUK, Iraq – “I was sold more than once,” Resalah* told UNFPA. A member of the Yazidi minority, she was abducted by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS or Da'esh), traded as property and subjected to relentless abuse. Though ...

They were lively and lovely, and they moved me close to tears. The Angolan teenaged girls I met told me about their dreams and the barriers they face to achieving what is simply normal elsewhere – finishing primary school, graduating from high school, protecting themselves from unplanned pregnancy ...

UNFPA is working with health systems to improve access to family planning, even in remote areas. In the last four years, UNFPA has provided family planning, family planning and maternal and reproductive health commodities worth over $12 million in Myanmar, and has invested $2.5 million into a new ...

“UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, notes with regret the determination by the United States of America to withhold funds from UNFPA for the second consecutive year. This unfortunate decision will impede UNFPA's crucial work to protect the health and lives of hundreds of millions of women and ...

Durame, ETHIOPIA – Genet Girma, 31, was a trailblazer in her community. Fifteen years ago, she ran away from home when she learned that her mother planned to have her undergo female genital mutilation (FGM). As in many other communities in Ethiopia, FGM is deep-rooted in the Kembatta community, ...

Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, also pressed the point, saying that she has seen no evidence that UNFPA had made funds available to any organization or program that supports or participates in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization, which is the standard required for the Kemp ...

In mid-February, humanitarian advocate, writer and actor Ashley Judd travelled to Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh to meet Rohingya refugees who have escaped violence in Myanmar's Rakhine State. There, she visited UNFPA-supported clinics and women-friendly spaces. Below are excerpts from diaries of ...

“We met a lot of people who were pregnant,” said Ameera Ahmad, a UNFPA gender officer who visited Tal Refaat and the surrounding areas. During its mission, UNFPA – the first United Nations agency to reach these communities – delivered 2,000 dignity kits, which contain sanitary napkins, soap, ...