News from Population Matters.
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PM supporters take action on UK aid cuts
Placeholder lead *UPDATED 14 July 2021: Population Matters is utterly dismayed that the Government won a vote in Parliament yesterday confirming its plan to cut UK aid to the world’s poorest to 0.5% of GNI, and that the economic circumstances required to allow it to return to 0.7% in future are completely unrealistic. The cuts, slashing a…
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Child marriage in the US: where is the outrage?
Girls as young as ten are legally getting married in the United States – nearly 300,000 since 2000, according to a new report by Unchained At Last. With no protective federal law in place, over 20 states allow for child marriage at 16 years, and 10 have no age limit whatsoever. Population Matters Outreach Coordinator…
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Population and reproductive rights – our new briefing
In a submission to the UK parliament, Population Matters calls for greater honesty about the population benefits of reproductive rights – and warns of the threat posed by nationalistic population policies.
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The Shadow Pandemic: Violence Against Women
One in three women around the world experience physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner. On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, former Population Matters Campaigner Katrina Dixon takes a sobering look at one of humanity’s oldest diseases. Content warning: this article features information and statistics on gender-based violence that may…
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An Act of Love: Vasectomies and positive masculinity
On 18 October 2013, filmmaker Jonathan Stack and urologist/vasectomist Dr. Doug Stein launched the first ever World Vasectomy Day (WVD). This week, 14-20 November 2020, they are celebrating the 8th annual event with close to 1,000 participating physicians in 30 countries committed to doing 10,000 vasectomies – WVD is now the largest male-oriented family planning…
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Birth control: where are the male options?
There is now a whole buffet of female contraceptive methods on the market, yet there remain only two options for men: condoms and vasectomy. Why is this? The invention of modern contraception has profoundly changed human society for the better by giving people control over whether and when to have children. Decades of research have…
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Attenborough film: Saving our planet requires ending population growth
David Attenborough’s ‘A Life On Our Planet‘ highlights the rampant destruction of nature caused by human population growth and unsustainable consumption, as well as the positive and urgently needed actions we must take to save our one and only planet. Population Matters Director Robin Maynard reviews the film. Hopefully millions of people across the world…
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The impact of COVID-19 on women’s reproductive health in India: Safeguarding women’s rights
In this guest blog post marking International Safe Abortion Day, Sanghamitra Singh, a health scientist working with the Population Foundation of India, examines the impact of the pandemic on women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion services, in India. There is rarely a crisis or calamity that doesn’t impact women differentially – COVID-19 is…
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Investing in contraception would save billions of dollars
A new report estimates that fulfilling the unmet need for modern contraception in developing countries would save $16 billion a year in maternal healthcare by reducing the number of unintended pregnancies. Adding It Up: Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health 2019, published by the Guttmacher Institute, highlights that a quarter of the 923 million women…
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World Population Day 2020 – sustainable development needs a sustainable population
Saturday 11 July marked World Population Day and for us it was the culmination of a series of digital events that we hope will encourage and inspire people to talk about population issues. This year our theme and activities centred around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With only ten years left to go, meeting…