One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked out of her husband's house here and ran to a local hospital, where she complained that he had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months. That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.

The average age of marriage in Yemen's rural areas is 12 to 13, a recent study by Sana University researchers found. The country, at the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

Her father, Ali Muhammad al-Ahdal, said he had agreed to the marriage because two of Nujood's older sisters had been kidnapped and forcibly married, with one of them ending up in jail. Al-Ahdal said he had feared the same thing would happen to Nujood, and early marriage had seemed a better alternative.

Connecticut is de derde staat in de Verenigde Staten waar het homohuwelijk wordt toegestaan. Het hooggerechtshof in de staat oordeelde vrijdag dat het huidige verbod in strijd is met de grondwet.

Alle campagnes ten spijt, een moslima zapt bij een tv-spotje over veilig vrijen uit schaamte nog steeds gauw weg.

Allochtone jongeren vertonen vaker seksueel risicovol gedrag dan autochtone jongeren. Uit cijfers van de Rutgers Nisso Groep en Soa Aids Nederland blijkt dat allochtone jongeren oververtegenwoordigd zijn als het gaat om seksueel overdraagbare aandoeningen en onbedoelde zwangerschappen. Bovendien zijn zij vaker slachtoffer en dader van seksueel geweld

Naar aanleiding van de cijfers laat staatssecretaris Bussemaker van Volksgezondheid deze maand onderzoek doen naar de seksuele gezondheid van allochtone jongeren. Ze wil weten waarom de huidige seksuele voorlichting niet overkomt op deze doelgroep.

Dat meisjes wellicht mondig genoeg zijn zich te verzetten tegen de handelingen van hun vriendjes, of om aan te geven wat zij wel en niet lekker vinden, is volgens Opzij niet aan de orde.Het blad beweert dat meisjes zich niet tegen de ruwe handelingen van hun partner durven te verzetten, omdat ‘ze gehersenspoeld zijn’ door de mediabeelden (natuurlijk weer die vervloekte rapvideo’s) die zeggen dat ze ‘sexy en gewillig’ moeten zijn.

Of jongeren er echt op zitten te wachten, dat de docent seksueel genot klassikaal behandelt, is wederom niet duidelijk, want er komt geen jongere aan het woord.

the UK's 1967 Abortion Act was passed when Northern Ireland had its own parliament - and even after direct rule was imposed in the early 1970s the law was never extended. Now that could be about to change.

more than 50,000 women have had to leave Northern Ireland in search of abortions in the past 40 years - many in the later stages of pregnancies because of delays caused by financial hardship. In 2007 alone, it estimates, around 1,400 women fled, paying up to £2,500 each for clinic and travel costs

some women are so desperate they are buying abortion pills on the internet. She adds that, according to one survey of GPs in Northern Ireland, 11% "have seen the results of amateur abortions"

Twintig jaar geleden begon Hanni Jagtman (57) de eerste vrouwvriendelijke sekswinkel van Nederland, en naar eigen zeggen ook van Europa.

„Er was veel rommel te koop, daar moesten we doorheen. Van die levensgrote kunstpenissen, en vibrators die een ’hulpmiddel’ werden genoemd. Daar hebben we snel korte metten mee gemaakt. Een kunstpenis heet gewoon een dildo, en aan een vibrator beleven we plezier, dus dat noemen we niet een ’hulpmiddel’.”

„Het is heel lastig om de teksten te maken, we hebben in Nederland geen goede vocabulaire voor seks. We kunnen hier uren discussiëren over het wel of niet gebruiken van het woord ’neuken’. Ik vind het een rotwoord, dat komt ook door verkeerde associaties met foute porno. Door die woorden toch te gebruiken, probeer ik ook iets te doorbreken. Als we het maar vaak genoeg zeggen, gaan we het misschien gewoon vinden.”

Microbicides have long been high on the wish list of grass-roots activists, who see them as the most promising way to prevent AIDS for heterosexual women at high risk of infection from unfaithful husbands or partners, especially in Asia and Africa.

Yet to date, research related to their development represents only 2 percent of all AIDS spending by the National Institutes of Health

One mathematical model, which focused on Johannesburg, South Africa, predicted that if 75 percent of area residents were to use a 40-percent-effective microbicide in half of the sexual encounters in which they didn't use condoms, the local incidence of HIV infection would drop by 9 percent. That may not sound like much, but across countries and continents, similar percentages could translate into millions of saved lives.

“If a 5-year-old black kid came into the clinic and said he wanted to be white, would we endorse that?” he told me. “I don’t think so. What we would want to do is say, ‘What’s going on with this kid that’s making him feel that it would be better to be white?’”

Zucker says that in 25 years, not one of the patients who started seeing him by age 6 has switched gender. Adolescents are more fixed in their identity. If a parent brings in, say, a 13-year-old who has never been treated and who has severe gender dysphoria, Zucker will generally recommend hormonal treatment. But he considers that a fraught choice. “One has to think about the long-term developmental path. This kid will go through lifelong hormonal treatment to approximate the phenotype of a male and may require some kind of surgery and then will have to deal with the fact that he doesn’t have a phallus; it’s a tough road, with a lot of pain involved.”

When they reversed course, they dedicated themselves to the project with a thoroughness most parents would find exhausting and off-putting. They boxed up all of John’s girl-toys and videos and replaced them with neutral ones. Whenever John cried for his girl-toys, they would ask him, “Do you think playing with those would make you feel better about being a boy?” and then would distract him with an offer to ride bikes or take a walk. They turned their house into a 1950s kitchen-sink drama, intended to inculcate respect for patriarchy, in the crudest and simplest terms: “Boys don’t wear pink, they wear blue,” they would tell him, or “Daddy is smarter than Mommy—ask him.” If John called for Mommy in the middle of the night, Daddy went, every time. When I visited the family, John was lazing around with his older brother, idly watching TV and playing video games, dressed in a polo shirt and Abercrombie & Fitch shorts. He said he was glad he’d been through the therapy, “because it made me feel happy,” but that’s about all he would say

contre l'égalité de salaires, contre l'avortement (même en cas de viol ou d'inceste), contre l'éducation sexuelle, le contrôle des naissances,

Palin ne partage rien d'autre qu'un chromosome avec Clinton

le féminisme n'a jamais eu pour objet de faire obtenir un poste à une femme, plutôt de rendre la vie plus juste pour l'ensemble des femmes

One in four girls ages 14 to 19 is infected with at least one of four common diseases. Among black girls in the study, almost half were infected.

in 2003-4

By far the most common of the four STDs was the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which infected 18 percent of the girls. Chlamydia infected 4 percent, trichomoniasis - a common parasite - 2.5 percent, and genital herpes 2 percent.

He compares the Philippines to Thailand. In 1975, both countries had similar population sizes of 41 million to 42 million. Then Bangkok began a major family-planning effort that included condom distribution as well as an awareness campaign. Now Thailand has a population of about 64 million and is the world's top exporter of rice. Meanwhile, the Philippines, with a population of 90 million, is the world's top rice importer. Thailand had a gross annual per capita income of $7,880 in 2007, while in the Philippines it was $3,730.

Pernia said that if the Philippines had followed the population growth trajectory of Thailand between 1975 and 2000, then its per capita income would have been at least 22 percent higher and there would have been five million fewer poor people.

Nearly half of the estimated 3.1 million pregnancies that occur every year in this Southeast Asian country are unplanned. Around half a million end in illegal and often dangerous back-street abortions.

the U.S. Agency for International Development ordered six African countries to ensure that no U.S.-funded condoms, birth control pills, IUDs or other contraceptives are furnished to Marie Stopes International, a British-based aid group that operates clinics in poor countries.

The irony and hypocrisy of it is that this is a bone to the self-described 'pro-life' movement, but it will result in deaths to women who just want to space their births

the result will be at least 157,000 additional unwanted pregnancies per year, leading to 62,000 additional abortions and 660 women dying in childbirth.

it's not sex education which is important, but culture and parent-child relationships

In all countries with low levels of teenage pregnancies and sexual infections, adults are more accepting of sexual activity among teenagers. However, these countries also give clear messages that sex should occur within committed relationships and that teenagers should protect themselves against pregnancy and infection.

There was a 6% rise in sex infections in the UK in 2007 compared to 2006

Half of the total were in people aged 16-24, despite the fact they represent just one in eight of the population

Young people still aren't getting the education and the services they need to manage their health and relationships

A third of 16 to 35-year-old men and 23% of women questioned said they drank to increase their chance of sex.

Young people were also more at risk of unsafe sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the study found.

dubbelleven

Onder druk van zijn familie heeft Hamid moeten besluiten toch maar te trouwen.

‘Het erge is dat zo twee mensen ongelukkig worden, niet alleen zo’n jongen, maar ook het meisje met wie hij trouwt.’