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Zika Virus Latin America

Decent Essays

This article focuses on the outbreak of the Zika virus, which has recently begun spreading across the world with an emphasis on Latin American countries Brazil and Colombia. There are currently over 26,000 people who have been confirmed as infected with the virus in Colombia alone and this number is expected to rise dramatically to about 600,000 within the coming months considering the location and altitude of the countries and the frequency of their carrier mosquito. The virus has no vaccine yet; all prevention methods are focused on controlling the mosquitos spreading the disease by promoting proper sanitation regarding dirty water storage and accumulated trash. Among the people infected is 16-year-old Angie Paola Castro, one of 3,177 women …show more content…

One common factor that decided the significance of women’s roles was the division of labor, where women had significant voice within their communities due to their roles of planting, farming, distributing the provisions hunted by the men, making baskets and other numerous tasks. The native societies were occasionally matrilineal where ancestry and control of the land was traces through the female line, however this changed in multiple areas, particularly in South America with the arrival of Spanish outsiders who pushed their own ideology and patriarchal society. “The church tried to impose a patriarchal system on Native women by attempting to restructure a division of labor consistent wit European notions of proper gender roles.” (20). The confiscation of women’s power and voice, along with the strong role of religion has continued to effect women’s roles and rights today. Until recently, many of these countries implement strict abortion and contraceptive laws that, at times, inhibit and control their lives. The new division of labor systems and adoption of other societies led women to lose a tremendous amount of control over their own lives. This is made especially apparent when the spread of certain diseases is even more widespread and affects newborns and children because women lack the resources to obtain contraceptives. These lead to serious issues that sometimes result in extreme poverty and sickness that could be prevented if women had the proper resources and voice over their own lives and

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