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White Ribbon Alliance by Joanna Vestey

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White Ribbon Alliance

Dreams for my Daughter

Mothers and fathers the world over have dreams for their daughters;  for love and happiness, for fulfilment and equality, for peace and prosperity…. But in all too many countries their daughters still have little option but to follow an age old pattern: forced into early marriage and risking death to give birth.  

In Afghanistan, 1 in 11 women die in childbirth, and in many countries it is more likely that girls will die giving birth than go to school. This reinforces the vicious circle of low education, poverty, child marriage – and back to early death in childbirth.

Launched for the 100th International Women’s Day, 8 March 2011, Dreams for My Daughter is a unique collection of photographs and writings inspired by Hadhya Yahya Mohammed Al-Zawm, a young woman from Yemen where White Ribbon Alliance is campaigning for a legal minimum age for marriage.  In a speech she gave at an event hosted by The White Ribbon Alliance’s Global Patron Sarah Brown,  Hadhya said her mother had a dream for her – not to be married at nine as she had been, and to get an education.

The White Ribbon Alliance has been gathering Dreams from supporters around the world and sharing them in many countries, helping to press political leaders to keep their recent promises to end the needless deaths of women and newborns in childbirth.

“I found out about the wonderful work of the White Ribbon Alliance who campaign to stop the deaths of women and babies in childbirth and wanted to help them in some way. They told me about their Dreams for My Daughter campaign and it really inspired me, I thought this is how I can help – by bringing Dreams to life with photographic portraits of the Dreamers.” Joanna Vestey

Spaces of Sanctuary 

Photography by Joanna Vestey, text Brigid McConville

The photographs in this collection tell of how women have sought sanctuary in the UK after fleeing from trafficking, rape, child marriage and other attacks on their rights. All women – whoever they are, wherever they come from – have the right to safe, respectful and dignified care in pregnancy and birth. Our government has promised this on the world stage. Yet in England, Home Office policies and NHS regulations mean that women’s rights are being systematically violated, putting refugee and migrant mothers and their newborns at risk.  International human rights law is the basis for the White Ribbon Alliance CHARTER FOR RESPECTFUL MATERNITY CARE, which spells out seven Universal Rights of Childbearing Women:

  1. Freedom from harm and ill treatment
  2. The right to information, informed consent and refusal, and respect for choices and preferences, including the right to companionship of choice wherever possible.
  3. Confidentiality, privacy
  4. Dignity, respect
  5. Equality, freedom from discrimination, equitable care
  6. The right to timely health care and to the highest attainable level of health
  7. Liberty, autonomy, self-determination, and freedom from coercion.

‘Spaces of Sanctuary’ is created by White Ribbon Alliance UK and partners including City of Sanctuary and the Refugee Council. www.whiteribbonalliance.co.uk, www.whiteribbonalliance.org/respectfulcare