Unsafe abortion exacts a punishing toll on women in the developing world, and many of the global maternal deaths resulting from unsafe abortion occur in Africa. According to World Health Organization (WHO) researchers, an estimated 4.2 million unsafe abortions occur throughout the continent each year.

Most African countries allow abortion in only one circumstance: when the woman’s life is endangered. In Kenya, where abortion is legal only to save a woman’s life, complications from unsafe procedures may account for up to 20,000 hospitalizations in the public health-care system alone. In Uganda, which has a similar law, it is estimated that almost 300,000 women and girls have unsafe abortions each year with about 85,000 seeking medical treatment for resulting complications. 

Though many African countries’ abortion laws stem from antiquated colonial legal codes, a few countries — Cape Verde, Ethiopia, South Africa and Tunisia — have reformed their laws to allow abortion for a broad array of circumstances during the first trimester. Other countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali and Togo, have reformed their national laws to loosen restrictions on legal abortion. Relatively liberal laws do not translate immediately into services being available, however, as is the case in Ghana and Zambia.

Even where abortion is allowed, women's ability to access services is often limited in resource-poor African countries. Limitations include too few physicians or health-care workers for large, underserved populations; scant government spending on health; the challenge of traveling long distances to public-health facilities; and primary health care that frequently does not cover reproductive health.

These obstacles compound the risk of unsafe abortion, particularly among adolescents and young women, who are especially vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy and who typically have less access to health information and services than adults.  In various countries, including Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia, adolescents make up a significant portion of hospital admissions related to unsafe abortion.

Furthermore, standards for safe abortion care vary greatly from facility to facility in countries across Africa. In Mozambique, liberal interpretation of the restrictive law has allowed for the provision of hospital-based abortions to save women’s lives and health. But in Mozambique and many other countries that have made progress in ensuring safe abortion care, women are still likely to undergo procedures without receiving contraceptive counseling to prevent future pregnancies, and many public-health facilities lack written protocols about treating abortion complications.

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, the Ipas Africa Alliance for Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights works to reduce maternal deaths from unsafe abortion; to expand the availability of high-quality comprehensive abortion care; and to advocate for policies that advance women’s reproductive health and rights across the continent. Established by Ipas in 2000, the Africa Alliance works across the region with partners in countries where Ipas does not have a country office and where the environment supports improving women’s health.

• Encouraging partners, such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa, to include comprehensive abortion care into their programs;
• Creating and equipping model training centers in Benin and Burkina Faso;
• Providing technical assistance for the formulation of safe abortion guidelines in Ghana and for the establishment of an Ipas Ghana office;
• Funding workshops for Kenyan women parliamentarians and other leaders to discuss possible policy reforms;
• Conducting Southern Africa regional meetings to help advocates from Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe advance reproductive health and abortion rights in their respective settings;
• Attending the African Union special session on sexual and reproductive health, during which health ministers affirmed unsafe abortion as a priority for member nations;
• Conducting woman-centered abortion care trainings for participants from more than 10 African countries;
• Educating nurses, midwives and representatives from civil society about the issue of unsafe abortion;
• Supporting efforts to translate into policy the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, an addition to the African Charter on Human Rights.

Through its training and advocacy work, the Ipas Africa Alliance for Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights seeks to effect change that betters women’s lives. Among its future goals are expanding training networks through Francophone Africa; establishing sustainable service-delivery systems and manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) supplies; bolstering local partners’ efforts to revise abortion policies; and working to expand services within restrictive legal environments. 
 

PO Box 5027, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA
919.967.7052 (voice) • 800.334.8446 (toll-free in US) • 919.929.0258 (fax) • contact us • privacy policy • photo disclaimer
©1998-2008 Ipas. All rights reserved.