The authors explored how social norms affect young people’s attitudes, perceptions, and behaviour regarding sexuality and contraceptive use in the Karamoja region, Uganda, through 12 focus group discussions, eight in-depth interviews, and 8 key informant interviews. Contradictory and shifting social norms shaped youth sexuality and contraceptive use. Premarital sex was discouraged and sanctioned, yet engagement sex is legitimized as a pathway to marriage. Gendered expectations restricted girls more severely, linking their value to virginity and bride price, while early and forced marriages were common, driven by paternal authority and cattle wealth. Norms varied by context: rural and less‑educated youth faced tighter regulation, while urban, educated peers reported greater freedom and covert contraceptive use. Fertility was celebrated as a measure of women’s respect and marital value, tied to bride price, with strong pressure to bear children immediately after marriage. Contraceptive use was stigmatized as addictive and incompatible with marital expectations as a girl who starts using contraceptives would continue with that habit even when married. Contradictory and gendered social norms, combined with misconceptions about modern contraceptives, constrain youth agency and reinforce gendered control over reproduction.
Values, Policies and Rights
This paper presents the development of a contextualized mobile health system, designed to monitor and report incidences of obstetric violence in the Central Zone of Tanzania. A qualitative study of context-specific components of obstetric violence among postnatal mothers, healthcare providers, and key community informants was used to develop the contextualized mHealth system. During the pilot, 25 pregnant women at between 34 and 36 weeks of their pregnancy and seven health care providers were randomly selected and followed for four weeks in one of the health care facility in Dodoma city. The system successfully captured 17 incidents of obstetric violence during pilot and sent 128 messages within a four-week period. It reported lack of supportive care and treatment, verbal violence, lack of autonomy, stigma and discrimination, psychological and emotional violence, Sexual violence and lack of privacy. It also captured five self-reflection messages from the healthcare providers on system functionalities and improvements were made. The m-Health system was reported to have the potential to empower women and healthcare providers, offering an easily accessible reporting system towards reducing obstetric violence.
The author argues that formal legal equality is not the same thing as lived protection. South Africa has one of the continent's strongest constitutional and statutory frameworks for gender equality and protection from domestic violence, guaranteeing equal protection and benefit of the law and prohibiting unfair discrimination on the grounds of gender. The Domestic Violence Act provides protection orders and related remedies intended to protect people from abuse within domestic relationships. Yet the distance between a right on paper and a right in use is produced by more than one problem. A woman may not know the right exists; she may know it exists but not know the procedure; she may understand the procedure but face cost, distance, language, fear of retaliation or economic dependency; or the institution meant to enforce the right may lack capacity. Legal literacy is therefore argued to be a necessary link in a longer chain of access and implementation, not a substitute for either. The author notes that passing a law is a visible event. Making that law legible across languages, literacy levels, economic constraints and competing authority structures is slower and less visible. That work deserves attention precisely because it is easy to celebrate legislative victories while overlooking whether the people they were written for can use them.
Biometric data is a new gold which various countries and corporate entities are seeking to extract profit from and exert control over populations across the world. The High Court of Kenya resisted this new extractivism and ordered the deletion of biometric data of several thousands of Kenyans whose economic difficulties had been exploited to obtain records of their iris. The court found that a company (Tools for Humanity – an operator of the Worldcoin cryptocurrency project) had never registered as a data controller, never conducted the legally required impact assessment, and had obtained “consent” from people whose economic circumstances made refusal almost unthinkable. The author argues that the case is a preview of a much larger and quieter contest now unfolding across the continent, over what biometric data actually is, and whose rules should govern it when foreign firms, financiers, and technology increasingly sit at the centre of Africa’s digital infrastructure. The author argues that the The AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol should formalise Standard Contractual Clauses that African states could require of any partner before biometric data crosses a border.
In the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, health systems across the region are under severe strain as injuries, displacement, and attacks on healthcare mount. By early March alone, Iran reported over 1,300 deaths and 9,000 injuries, Lebanon at least 570 deaths and 1,400 injuries, and WHO verified 43 attacks on healthcare facilities across both countries since 28 February. Over 100,000 people were reported as displaced in Iran and up to 700,000 in Lebanon, with crowded shelter conditions raising risks of respiratory and diarrhoeal diseases. In Gaza, WHO report that medical evacuations remained suspended and hospitals have continued to operate under critical shortages, while temporary airspace restrictions have disrupted WHO supply shipments affecting over 1.5 million people across 25 countries. Humanitarian health emergency appeals across the Eastern Mediterranean Region — where 115 million people require assistance — remain 70% underfunded. WHO calls on all parties to protect civilians and healthcare, ensure unimpeded humanitarian access, and pursue de-escalation.
On Workers' Day 2026, the Southern African Trade Union Coordination Council (SATUCC) emphasises building cohesion within the labour movement to address challenges posed by digitalisation, remote work, and casualisation. Key demands include the right to unionise, strike, and broader socio-economic rights such as housing and citizenship. In 2026, the Secretariat reported a renewed commitment to strengthening labour rights, promoting decent work, deepening regional cooperation, and responding proactively to the evolving world of work. The Decent Work in Construction project supports labour law compliance and working conditions in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, and had reached over 1,000 workers by early 2026. SATUCC is monitoring violations of labour rights — especially freedom of association — and promotes the formalisation of informal work arrangements, including collective bargaining frameworks in the construction sector. In the extractive sector, SATUCC advocates for community rights, protection against land displacement, and advocates for corporate accountability. The 2026 programme combines policy engagement, grassroots implementation, and strong advocacy on both traditional labour concerns and emerging challenges, positioning SATUCC as a critical voice for workers across Southern Africa.
The author argues that climate–health research is not value-neutral and that the values shaping research priorities, methods, and policy recommendations must be made explicit. Climate-related health harms are unequally distributed and often irreversible, creating strong ethical reasons for deliberate priority-setting, even under conditions of scientific uncertainty. Key value-laden trade-offs are illustrated through energy policy decisions, where governments must weigh economic stability and livelihoods against the health harms of carbon-intensive systems — choices that evidence alone cannot resolve. Drawing on analyses of UN system frameworks, the author identifies sustainability, equity, justice, and solidarity as recurrent values across climate, health, and humanitarian policy domains. Additional research ethics values — beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, respect, and scientific integrity — are consistently at stake, particularly in studies involving vulnerable populations with limited adaptive capacity. Constrained funding environments and contested acceptance of climate science can shape which questions are pursued and which populations remain visible in research agendas. Making values explicit does not replace evidence or legal frameworks, but provides a shared language for navigating difficult choices in a field with high stakes for health, equity, and future generations.
Zimbabwe's National One Health Strategic Plan seeks to align with the Global Quadripartite One Health Joint Plan of Action and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land). The plan aligns with Zimbabwe's National Development Strategy 1, NDS 2 priority areas, and Vision 2030, which emphasise sustainable development, food security, climate resilience, and inclusive growth. Strengthening governance, aligning policies, and fostering collaboration among key One Health ministries and departments — including the Ministry of Health and Child Care; the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, and Rural Development; the Ministry of Environment, Climate, and Wildlife; and the National Biotechnology Authority — as well as other relevant stakeholders, is identified as central to building and implementing a comprehensive One Health framework.
The 2nd Uganda National Conference on Health, Human Rights and Development (UCHD 2025) brought together policymakers, leaders, civil society actors, development partners, academia and grassroots advocates. Over the three days, delegates engaged in conversations that strengthened movements, forged partnerships and laid a foundation for lasting change and sustainable multi-sectoral collaborations that will accelerate the country’s progress to universal health coverage. The conference launched The Uganda Declaration on Social Determinants of Health - a shared commitment to advancing health equity in Uganda. The authors note " the seeds of change are planted; now the work is carried forward into action."
The Gaza Strip, characterized by its dense population and persistent geopolitical instability, has experienced decades of armed conflict, resulting in systematic healthcare infrastructure deterioration. The healthcare delivery system has been collapsed by Israeli military operations, creating cascading effects that extend beyond regional boundaries. The medical facilities have been targeted, combined with humanitarian aid restrictions, has created unprecedented challenges in providing essential healthcare services to the affected population. The environmental degradation resulting from infrastructure destruction poses additional threats to regional and global health systems. This analysis examines the multifaceted health crisis encompassing healthcare system dysfunction, pharmaceutical supply chain disruption, infectious disease proliferation, and the consequent implications for global health security. The conflict and military support raise trade-offs between military expenditures and other critical sectors, including international healthcare and development funding. The failure to protect healthcare infrastructure in Gaza establishes concerning precedents for similar conflicts globally and undermines the fundamental principle of medical neutrality. The Gaza crisis demonstrates the urgent need for strengthened global health security mechanisms capable of responding to conflict-induced health emergencies.