Standing with Our Sisters Here and Worldwide

99% of pregnancy related deaths occur in the developing world. Each year, 529,000 women and girls die worldwide due to complications related to pregnancy, including as many as 70,000 women and girls who die every year from botched abortions, millions more are left injured. These are just estimates. Actual numbers of women dying are much higher when you consider how many deaths go unreported. All these fatalities are preventable.

Access to family planning saves women’s lives. Most Americans are unaware of the far reaching impacts that polices made on Capitol Hill have on the reproductive health and lives of women in these countries, but the fight we face on the domestic front and the fight that we face on the global front for reproductive rights are not two separate battles: They are one and the same. It is crucial to align domestic and global family-planning movements to save women’s lives. The U.S. must take up its former position as a leader in women’s health and rights. Financial assistance for international family planning must be increased.

Feminists Announce New Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls

As President Obama and his Administration concludes a two month review of Afghanistan and formulates its plans for moving forward in Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar, preeminent human rights leader and Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Sudan, cautioned administration officials as well as members of Congress that human rights, especially the rights of women, must be a central focus. more...

Click here to watch full coverage of announcement on CSPAN

See FMF President Eleanor Smeal's statements on the repeal of the Global Gag Rule and President Obama's pledge to restore United States funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in upcoming appropriations.

Download FM's fact sheets:

• The United States Must Increase International Family Planning Funding
• The Afghan's Women's Women's Health Initiative
• Ratify Key International Treaties
• Ms. Magazine Winter 2008 issue, "Global Gag Rule Kills Women"

Take Action on Your Campus Today!

• Hold a panel discussion on International Family Planning
• Educate your campus about the United Nation's Women's Treaty, CEDAW
• Sponsor a showing of the "Global Majority...Again" video followed by a discussion
• Get involved with our Women and Climate Change Campaign

Anushay Hossain: Global Programs Coordinator Anushay Hossain began her feminist career at the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) working on microfinance and non formal primary education programs for impoverished women and girls in her native country, Bangladesh. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2002 and joined the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign for Afghan Women as Project Organizer. In 2004 Anushay moved to the United Kingdom where she completed her Master’s in Gender and Development from the University of Sussex, focusing her dissertation on the barriers women face in accessing reproductive healthcare in Bangladesh. Anushay spent a year working at UNIFEM UK (United Nations Development Fund for Women) before returning to the Feminist Majority where she invests the majority of her work on global reproductive healthcare, both at the grassroots and policy levels. Phone: (703) 522-2214 Email: ahossain@feminist.org