Gender-based violence was the focus of many of this year's sessions at the United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women, showing the extent to which the problem remains persistent, serious and endemic.
Nuns founded and led Catholic hospitals to treat sick and poor people. But over time, a focus on margins led the hospitals to transform into behemoths that operate for-profit subsidiaries and pay their executives millions.
Despite years of shortages in Cuba, and now more constant blackouts, Catholic sisters and priests are committed to remain with those suffering on the island.
At St. Josephine Bakhita Babies Home in Busia, western Kenya, religious sisters and social workers take in abandoned and orphaned newborns in a region that has seen rising cases of incest and maternal mortality.
In Haiti's capital city, "they are literally in hell," says Sr. Jaqueline Picard. The effects of rampant gang violence in Port-au-Prince reach the rural communities where she and other Religious of Jesus and Mary serve.
Sisters of secular institutes in India spearhead ministries that offer a better future to children who have been living in the streets or found at bus stations, offering shelter, education and later placing them in job training.
