This statement was delivered at the 46th Session of the Commission on Population and Development on behalf of the Human Rights Caucus, which is a group of 36 organizations working on sexual and reproductive health, human rights, and migrants’ rights. (Delivered on April 24, 2013)

Statement of a coalition of young advocates and activists related to young people with respect to this year’s theme of migration (Delivered on April 24, 2013).

Remarks by Shannon Kowalski, Director of Advocacy & Policy, International Women's Health Coalition, on behalf of the Women’s Major Group at the 2nd Meeting of the Open Working Group of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Nearly 300 friends and supporters joined IWHC in honoring Christiane Amanpour at our annual gala on April 8, 2013, at The Pierre in New York City. As CNN’s chief international correspondent and the global affairs anchor for ABC News, Amanpour has maintained an unwavering commitment to telling the stories of women and girls around the world. IWHC President Françoise Girard and Board Chair Marlene Hess presented Amanpour with an honorary tribute for being a “champion for women and girls.” The following are her remarks at the gala.

At its annual gala on April 8, 2013, IWHC presented the first Joan B. Dunlop Award to Adenike Esiet, Executive Director of Action Health Incorporated, based in Lagos, Nigeria. The award recognizes Esiet’s outstanding work to advance the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents in Nigeria. Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, presented Esiet with the award. The following are Esiet’s remarks.

Summary: On February 8, 2011, the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) held its annual gala at 583 park Avenue in New York City. More than 300 friends and supporters joined us in honoring Partners in Health co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer, who has provided quality health care to those most in need for more than 20 years. These are his remarks made at the event.

 

DR. PAUL FARMER: The best kind of friends, I've learned, are those who instead of being irritated by cheek or impertinence, actually listen to you. So Aryeh, thank you for listening to that letter that I wrote to you 13 years ago. 

I'm going to speak about gender equity, what the IWHC does, and why this is so significant to me, but first, I just want to say one thing that I think is relevant to the struggle before all those concerned with gender equity and breaking the cycle of poverty and disease. The Tomsk example, the Siberia example, is not insignificant. When Aryeh and other visionaries decided that one way to promote prison reform might be to focus on the enormous health crisis inside the Russian prison system, that was breathtakingly innovative in my view. In other words, how could we promote prison reform? One answer was to help provide basic and good medical care. And the kind of suggestion that I made was a very technical one. It was that if we have the wrong prescription we will not cure patients, and we will certainly not impress our colleagues in the penal system, in the prison system.

And so the year that Open Society Institutes and Aryeh were good enough to invite me to be a part of this, the case fatality rate inside a tuberculosis treatment unit in Siberia was 26 percent. Now what does that mean? That means that a quarter of all these young people died inside a treatment program. And when I had the backing of Aryeh and George and others to change the prescription, the case fatality rate went from 26 percent to zero within one year.

That is, people stopped dying of tuberculosis. And I want to talk a little bit tonight about our work around the promotion of gender equity as almost a tool to break the cycle of poverty and disease. I would like to say to IWHC, with its goal of saying a just and healthy life is every woman's right, thank you for letting me for letting me bathe in the light of a statement like that because I believe in it with all my heart.

I don't see, in fact, how we can advance our work without embracing such bold, if simple, principles. I'd like to now tell you three stories, epiphanies. 

Josina Machel delivered this speech at the 4th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in February 2010. Machel is a gender activist and a social entrepreneur and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Women's Health Coalition. The speech is available to download in Word and PDF.

This speech was given by Priscilla Ikos Usiobaifo, Program Coordinator of BraveHeart Initiative, at the official ceremony of Nigeria's 49th Independence Day celebration held at Public Field, Igarra, Edo State.

This speech was delivered by Adrienne Germain at the G8 International Parliamentarians' Conference in Rome, Italy, on June 22, 2009.

>>Available in PDF

Summary: Statement by Ishita Chaudhry, Founder, the YP Foundation. Remarks for Congressional Briefing— Global Youth: A Strategic Investment. March 3, 2009