Doctors Without Borders: How drones gave women access to contraception and abortion
Nowadays drones are perceived as either an expensive toy, or as a military aircraft. In conflict regions, they are used for photo reconnaissance and air attacks, while in peaceful countries the drone is an instagram profile with beautiful panoramic views and several thousand subscribers. Organizations that use drones for a completely different purpose — maintaining health in Africa and Latin America — are trying to bring harmony into this apparent gap in the perception of droneless men. We tell how new and not the most unambiguous technologies have put in the service of the struggle for women's rights around the world - from delivering contraception to forgotten villages in civilization in Ghana to a social experiment in Poland, where abortions are prohibited.
From destruction to creation
In many tourist places from Hong Kong to San Francisco, you can now find not just a mass of people with selfie sticks, but also a dozen travelers with drones recording video of how they are photographed using selfie sticks. Humming drones are now taking off everything that professional routers do not reach: they are swimming through the wall of an exploding salute or taking panoramic views of a wedding and knocking down a groom.
Half a century ago, the development of drones began to develop military surveillance. They are still widely used during hostilities, not only for observation, but also for direct attack. According to the London Bureau of Investigative Journalism, in 2015, about 1,500 people were killed in attacks by UAVs in Afghanistan. But despite their dark reputation of control panels for killing and spying in the last ten years, drone began to gradually find different types of creative use.
In 2011, Tom Poole, a member of the Occupy Wall Street movement, used the drone to report from the scene of the event, while the police banned journalists from entering the territory to the protesters. Since 2012, activist Marc Devris has been using drones to shoot farms and investigate the difficult conditions that animals contain and the extent of natural damage caused by factories. In Switzerland, architects and engineers suggest using unmanned aerial vehicles in construction, in Bosnia, in demining fields, and in New Zealand, in the work of naval rescuers. Scientists at Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have fulfilled the secret dream of all those who have ever been lost in the late Cherkizovsky market, and invented Skycall, an unmanned conductor in an intricate urban space. An example is a flying guide on campus.
But the last hottest idea that the giants Amazon and Google quickly picked up was the use of drones to transport goods. Amazon has been testing different models of UAVs since 2013, and at the end of last year introduced Amazon Prime Air, the express delivery service. And Google showed how using a drone you can send water and essential items, including food for dogs, to remote areas of Australia. Drone as a means of delivering medical care in developing countries has become one of the most discussed concepts in the work of international humanitarian aid and development organizations. Major players such as Doctors Without Borders and UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) are already testing pilot programs for delivering medicines to remote villages in different African countries. It is assumed that drones will be able to make a breakthrough in the fight against the epidemics of AIDS and HIV, as well as in work aimed at maintaining the reproductive health of women.
Solving an infrastructure problem
At the end of 2015, stellar British architect Norman Foster presented a project of airports for drones in Rwanda - the Red Line. The project partner is Afrotech, a research organization dedicated to the development of UAVs. The project participants suggest that the lack of road infrastructure in Africa can be circumvented by developing a network of UAVs - by analogy with mobile phones that came to the region before the appearance of telephone lines. Afroteсh scientists and engineers plan to introduce two types of drones to work: for transporting small packages up to 10 kg with first-aid equipment and for transporting large-sized cargoes weighing up to 100 kg. And the task of Norman Foster is to build unloading stations for drones.
But the first medical aid on the drones began to deliver a small startup Matternet in 2010 after the earthquake in Haiti, long before the Foster project. Drones of this company can lift cargo up to 2 kg and carry it up to distances up to 10 km. In Haiti, they delivered water, chocolate and medicines. After a successful experience, the startup decided to turn to other regions suffering from a lack of developed road infrastructure. And the country of experiment was Lesotho, suffering from one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world. Matternet drones were involved in the work of medical personnel: blood tests were delivered through the capital, Maseru, from delivery centers directly to the laboratory, where the diagnosis was already detected.
According to Andreas Raptopoulos, co-founder of the company, the experiment was a success within the city, but it can be transferred to more large-scale areas. If you build a network of UAV stations linking villages a hundred kilometers apart, in the future you will drastically change the level of health care in the country. The cost of one station is about 3 thousand US dollars, and the cost of the Matternet drone is about 5 thousand. Raptopoulos argues that this is quite a lifting price for large international organizations.
At the end of 2014, the Dutch scientific organization Drones for Development presented its concept of using drones. Scientists have suggested that in order to combat the epidemics in African countries and to maintain women's reproductive health, it is first of all necessary to use drones to deliver contraceptives to isolated villages. But unlike the two previous examples, the Foster project and the Matternet startup, the Dutch set themselves the task to solve two problems at once - both in health care and in economic development.
Drone charging stations in a number of African countries, which are currently pilot testing the project, will also be an example of a new social entrepreneurship model. The stations will contribute to the growth of employment of the population: local doctors, mechanics and porters will be able to work on their base, which will potentially strengthen the financial stability of the region. In May 2016, it is planned to issue a test period report in a number of countries. Until that time, representatives of the organization refused to disclose information and comment.
Bypassing the laws
UAVs can be useful not only in regions where a poor infrastructure serves as an obstacle to maintaining women's health, but also in countries where local legislation prevents this. For example, the Dutch organization Women on Waves has been fighting for the rights of women through loopholes to bypass the laws of various countries for over a decade and recently began using drones in their work.
Rebecca Gomperts, a doctor and founder of the organization, has worked with Greenpeace missions around the world. Traveling in Africa and Latin America, she has repeatedly encountered the fact that in the countries of these regions many women die because of the effects of abortion. She thought it was a paradox, because, as a doctor, she understood that the procedure was inherently safe. But mortality was high not only because of a shortage of medicines, but also because of legal barriers. Rebecca decided to help women in countries where abortion is forbidden: she rented a ship and began to swim with her fellow doctors in different regions. This gave the name of the organization, and it began to operate thanks to the law of international waters: the ship submits not to the territory, but to the flag under which it sails. So, by visiting Morocco, Northern Ireland, Portugal, doctors were able to help women perform an abortion procedure.
More and more letters from women from different countries began to come to the organization, asking when the ship would reach them. This prompted Rebecca to set up Women on the Web subsidiary, which provides advice on reproductive health issues and, in particular, on medical abortion pills. The site visitor fills out a questionnaire consisting of 25 questions, and if experts confirm the safety of the abortion procedure in her case, a package with pills will be sent to the woman’s address.
If a woman is not able to pay for the pills, then medicines are provided to her at the expense of the organization. Requests for help with medical abortion come from all over the world - from Northern Ireland and Poland to Saudi Arabia and Brazil. According to a representative of the organization, Leticia Zenevich, most requests recently come from Brazil in connection with the epidemic of Zika virus.
In 2015, members of the organization wondered: what if using the drone in those regions where the ship is not able to sail? So, as the first experiment in June 2015, representatives of Women on Waves decided to try to send a drone from Germany to Poland. “We wanted to show how in Europe, in the two neighboring countries, women have completely opposite rights and opportunities,” Leticia explains.
The main objective of the experiment was to draw attention to the issue of women's rights in Poland. On the Polish side, the authorities tried to stop the rally, but could not legally prove that it violated any rules. “Everything was within the law, so they didn’t work for us. In fact, we made the Polish authorities understand that we can make them victims of their own legislation, just like they make women victims of legislation.” An experiment with the drone forced women in Poland to start a debate on the legalization of abortion. The organization Women on Waves considers this a success and plans to hold new promotions using UAVs in the future.
What will happen next
There are many obstacles to the spread of the UAV infrastructure. The main ones are the cost of drones and their maintenance, as well as stricter legislation of the countries. While prices will potentially decline, the issue of legislation is not so simple. This is due not only to the widespread use of drones in military operations and the large number of civilian deaths. Increasingly, stories are published about how drones violate the boundaries of private property, thereby triggering a whole series of scandals. There are also reports that drones were captured in Australia, Greece and Canada, with which they tried to deliver drugs, mobile phones and even weapons to prison territory. Such cases only worsen public opinion, raising the question of the role of drones, for example, in drug trafficking and thereby tightening the laws regarding airspace. Ideally, both the public and the legislature should be extremely cautious: on the one hand, of course, it is important to protect private property and the safety of residents, but on the other, it is not worth limiting the work of international development organizations. Perhaps a growing number of encouraging examples, such as the delivery of medicines to women in developing countries, will help this process.
Photo: 1, 2, cover via Shutterstock
