This two-page fact sheet is drawn from a report by Ipas and the Great Lakes Initiative for Human Rights and Development on the legal and human rights impact of Rwanda’s 2012 abortion law. The report found that Rwandan police unjustly harass, arrest, prosecute and imprison hundreds of women and girls on abortion or infanticide-related charges each year and calls on the Rwandan government to take steps to address this ongoing human rights violation.
This brief describes the advocacy efforts, led by Ipas Pakistan and local partners, to integrate WHO-approved approaches (UE methods and training of additional cadres of providers) into the healthcare system. In particular, it details the work done to establish the Punjab Reproductive Health Technology Assessment Committee (PRHTAC)—a provincial body formed to review existing evidence on UE technologies, address concerns about stigma, examine a legal basis for clinical expansion to MLPs, consider the financial implications of new technologies, and, ultimately, to make recommendations/changes for the adoption of misoprostol and MVA into the local healthcare system.
This brief presents results and lessons learned from a youth-focused project in Kailali District implemented between 2012 and 2014. The project demonstrated that, working in consultation with health-care providers and other adults, young people can play a meaningful—even essential—role in improving the quality of sexual and reproductive health services for young people. It also showed that young people, with appropriate training and support, can effectively inform and counsel their peers about sexual and reproductive health and rights, including abortion.
This booklet describes Ipas’s work with youth to promote their sexual and reproductive health and rights. With facts and concise explanations—plus illustrative stories from Nepal, South Africa and Ecuador—the booklet highlights the challenges young people face and the opportunities for them to become leaders and work with adults to design policies and health services that are youth appropriate.
This report analyzes the findings of an Ipas investigation into the enforcement of laws criminalizing abortion in three South American countries—Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina—and is the first in a series of Ipas reports on criminal abortion laws in countries around the world. It documents accounts of hundreds of women and health-care providers who have been arrested, charged, detained and sometimes imprisoned for violating abortion-related laws. It calls on governments with restrictive abortion laws to remove abortion from criminal or penal codes and treat it as any other health-care service.
This two-page research brief looks at the results of client exit interviews conducted in 2014 with 616 Zambian women who sought a safe and legal pregnancy termination. The interviews explored issues of quality, service delivery and information dissemination as perceived by the women themselves—a perspective often neglected in reproductive health.
Ipas’s mission to reduce deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion and to increase women’s ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights is comprehensive. This report provides a snapshot of the breadth of Ipas efforts, highlighting fiscal year 2014 (July 2013-June 2014) results.
This two-page fact sheet presents the evidence showing that second-trimester abortions disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and underserved populations—including young women, women facing financial barriers to accessing health care, victims of violence and women with significant medical conditions.
This brief describes a study to evaluate the sustained uptake of postabortion LARC (IUDs and implants) among young women after a youth-friendly services (YFS) intervention by Ipas in Ethiopia.
With the goal of reducing deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion, Ipas works in collaboration with Myanmar’s Ministry of Health (MOH) and Department of Public Health (DOPH) to improve the quality of postabortion care available to women in public health facilities.
This report, produced by Ipas and Ibis Reproductive Health, is the first inclusive report on how the Helms and Hyde Amendments harm access to abortion. It highlights the ways in which the Amendments violate human rights, impose barriers on access to safe abortion for women and young women, and tie the hands of the health-care providers who serve them.
This fact sheet looks at the policy implications of a national abortion incidence study showing that, even though abortion is heavily restricted throughout Nigeria, 1.25 million Nigerian women had an abortion in 2012. The study found that almost all of the abortions were performed clandestinely, many by unskilled providers or using unsafe methods or both.
This four-page fact sheet describes the positive impact of Ipas’s global work to enhance women’s reproductive rights and their ability to prevent unintended pregnancy and to obtain safe abortion care. It outlines Ipas’s recent achievements in the following areas: training and support to health systems; partnering with community-based organizations, ministries of health and other health organizations; advocating for the liberalization of abortion laws and improved abortion policies; and conducting policy- and program-relevant research on abortion.
Despite the fact that abortion is legal in South Africa under a range of circumstances and available in public health facilities throughout the country, many women and girls continue to seek clandestine, unsafe abortions that put their health and lives at risk. To ensure well-informed program design and solid support and engagement from program stakeholders and beneficiaries, Ipas conducted a strategic assessment on abortion in Limpopo and Gauteng Provinces in 2018. Three factsheets contained here present recommendations and key findings compiled from various information-gathering methods used in our assessment.
The stories presented here are based on real lives and real events. Each one represents thousands of women around the world whose lives Ipas works to improve. Our work is urgent: 44,000 women and girls die each year from unsafe abortions, and millions more suffer serious, often permanent injuries. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Ipas works globally to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls by enhancing their access to safe abortion and contraceptive care.
The 2016 annual report describes how Ipas works globally to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls by enhancing their access to and use of safe abortion and contraceptive care. In 2016, almost 600,000 women received safe abortion care at Ipas-supported health facilities, and we reached more than 1.2 million people with information on safe abortion and how to access it. We also engaged with more than 400,000 people at the national, regional and global levels to build support for abortion rights and law reform.
This technical brief describes Ipas’s work with the Myanmar Department of Public Health to update its national postabortion care guidelines to reflect WHO recommendations regarding uterine evacuation technologies. For the first time, PAC using medical methods (misoprostol) was included.