India is an emerging global superpower, but far too many women and girls continue to face severe barriers while trying to access life-saving healthcare. Tens of thousands of Indian women needlessly die every year because of pregnancy, childbirth, and unsafe abortions. Families accept these deaths as destiny or fate, unaware most maternal deaths can be prevented with access to appropriate healthcare.

In June and July 2009, the Cambodian government forcibly relocated HIV-affected families living in Borei Keila, a housing development in Phnom Penh, to substandard housing at Tuol Sambo, a remote site 25 kilometers from the city. The families were resettled into crude, green metal sheds that are baking hot in the daytime and lack running water and adequate sanitation.

Photographs by New York Times photographer Ruth Fremson of refugees that escaped on a small fishing boat from the No Fire Zone in Sri Lanka. After getting lost at sea, they were rescued nine days later from Indian waters. Of the 21 refugees that set out on the journey, ten died before they could be rescued.

Chin of Burma's far-flung western Chin State have long borne the brunt of abusive military rule. Ongoing repression and abuses by the Burmese military, combined with policies and practices of the military government have caused thousands of ethnic Chin to flee the country. Most go across the border to India, and some to Malaysia and Thailand.

Children have been forcibly recruited to serve as soldiers by all parties to the conflict in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have been sent to the frontlines, are used as porters, guards or sex slaves. Photographs by Marcus Bleasdale.