News stories by Fabiana Frayssinet

RÍO DE JANEIRO, Apr 04 (IPS) - Several initiatives are seeking to strengthen the fight against femicides in Latin America, a region which, despite growing popular mobilisation and pioneering legislation against gender-based murders, still has the world's worst rates in what has been described as a "silent genocide," says U.N. Women.

RÍO DE JANEIRO, Mar 15 (IPS) - "More than 50 countries in the world have discriminatory laws against people affected by Hansen's disease. There is also a lot of discrimination in the public administration…and in society," Alice Cruz, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members, said in this interview with IPS (in Spanish, with English subtitles).

BUENOS AIRES/RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 05 (IPS) - This article is part of IPS coverage of International Women's Day on Mar. 8.

Designed mostly by men, many digital applications are not suitable for women, but some initiatives are beginning to include them as programmers and beneficiaries in Latin America, where the gender gap is also technological.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 30 (IPS) - The crusade against comprehensive sex education by conservative and religious sectors undermines progress in Latin America and could further drive up rates of teen pregnancy, communicable diseases and abuse against girls and adolescents.

LA PLATA, Argentina, Dec 01 (IPS) - This article is part of IPS coverage of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, which began on Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Left blind by a beating from her ex-husband, Susana Gómez barely managed to avoid joining the list of nearly 2,800 femicides committed annually in Latin America, but her case shows why public policies and laws are far from curtailing gender-based violence in the region.

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 23 (IPS) - The Argentine Senate's rejection of a bill to legalise abortion did not stop a Latin American movement, which is on the streets and is expanding in an increasingly coordinated manner among women's organisations in the region with the most restrictive laws and policies against pregnant women's right to choose.

RÍO DE JANEIRO, Aug 10 (IPS) - An alternative network in Brazil promotes women's participation in elected offices with media support. This campaign, like others in Latin America, seeks to reverse a political landscape where, despite being a majority of the population, women hold an average of just 29.8 percent of legislative posts.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 28 (IPS) - The rescue earlier this month of 12 Venezuelan and three Colombian women from a prostitution network that recruits migrants in Peru is an example of the complex web where migration and human trafficking often involve victims of forced labour and sexual exploitation.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 03 (IPS) - This article is part of special IPS coverage for World Environment Day, on June 5, whose theme this year is "Beat Plastic Pollution".Although Latin America produces just five percent of the world's plastic, it imports billions of tons annually for the use of all kinds of products, some of which end up in the sea as garbage.

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 14 (IPS) - Child labour has been substantially reduced in Latin America, but 5.7 million children below the legal minimum age are still working and a large proportion of them work in precarious, high-risk conditions or are unpaid, which constitute new forms of slave labour.