More than 600 marchers took to the streets of Accra to observe Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights Day.

Photo courtesy of Richard Lord

More than 600 marchers took to the streets of Accra, Ghana, on May 15 to observe Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights Day, part of a series of events linked to a two-week African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) meeting in the capital.

The rally was sponsored by ACHPR, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the Ministry of Justice.  Ipas Ghana and other nongovernmental organizations in the Reducing Maternal Morbidity and Mortality (R3M) consortium, a group that aims to lower maternal deaths in the country, supported the march.

March co-organizer, human rights advocate and Ipas consultant Nana Oye Lithur said: “We’ve had many marches before in Accra, about domestic violence and other issues. But this was the first march that was about reproductive rights. And it was an African march, not just a Ghana march, [with participants] from countries such as Mozambique and Uganda.”

The march, related roundtables and media appearances raised awareness about a variety of reproductive health and rights issues experienced by women throughout the African continent, said Lithur.  Featured speakers included Sherry Ayitey, financial director of the 31st December Movement, on behalf of Nana Konadu Rawlings, the former first lady of Ghana; Ghanaian Deputy Attorney General Osei Prempeh; and Dr. Angela Melo, the African Commission’s special rapporteur on the rights of women for Africa.

"The march was to create visibility about women’s reproductive health issues in Africa. [For the African Commission’s special session], we had delegates come from 53 countries and commissioners. … Ordinary women took part, too. This was to let them know that government is trying to address the issues. Women were talking about female genital mutilation, access to contraception and having the ability to make decisions about their bodies."

Reducing maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion was another topic of discussion. Dr. Richard Turkson, former executive director of the National Population Council in Ghana and now an Ipas consultant, delivered a brief statement about the need for wider reproductive health care in Ghana, which is now working to put safe abortion guidelines approved last year into action.

He said that unsafe abortion contributes to innumerable deaths in Ghana and across Africa, but that “no woman should have to risk her life or health because she lacks reproductive options.”

Turkson stressed that policies that provide for and protect reproductive health care must be passed and implemented. Ghana, for instance, has had a relatively progressive abortion law since 1985 and has typically included postabortion care in its public-health programs, but lagged in integrating comprehensive abortion care into its facilities.

Safe abortion is an integral ingredient in cutting the number of maternal deaths and injuries, said both Turkson and Lithur. Turkson emphasized that Ghana would be unable to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of slashing maternal deaths 75 percent by 2015 without a sustained commitment to decrease unsafe abortion. Various studies estimate that anywhere from 22 percent to one-third of maternal deaths in the country may be attributed to complications from unsafe abortion.

Turkson also urged Ghana and other nations to sign the Additional Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights. Ratified in November 2005, it is a progressive, legally binding human rights document that ensures, in Article 14, women’s rights to control their fertility and number of children, if any; choose any method of contraception; and access safe, legal abortion in cases of rape, incest, or when carrying a pregnancy to term would endanger the woman’s life or health.

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