As the recent World Cup showcased the best of South Africa, I can’t help being affected by the contrast presented in 2 articles in the June 14 and 28 issues of TIME magazine about the plight of women and children in other parts of impoverished Africa.
Authored by Alice Park, The Perils of Pregnancy: One Woman’s Tale of Dying to Give Birth tells of how a woman in Sierra Leone lost her life at age 18 after giving birth to a pair of twins due to the lack of medical services. According to the article, “… childbirth remain among the leading causes of death of woman worldwide; every day, one woman per minute dies while giving birth or soon after.” The pictures in the article were especially disturbing, including the 18 year-old’s final moments.
The next article, Battling A Scourge by Alex Perry, is about how the children of a small town in Uganda – Apac suffers from malaria, where “almost 90% of malaria victims are children under 5”. It’s hard to imagine raising kids in these extreme conditions, and reminds me again of how fortunate we are to live in Singapore.
So, there is always two sides to every story…
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