In 2021, the “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill” was introduced in the Ghanaian Parliament. The bill, if passed, would criminalize LGBTI people and behavior, as well as those who support their rights, and even those who report on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) issues. While there has been significant national and international media coverage of the bill, what is less understood is who is driving promotion of the bill, and the accompanying harmful public debate. This report seeks to fill that knowledge gap, identifying who is behind the external anti-LGBTI influence, detailing connections between Ghanaian leaders and conservative foreign groups, and showing how anti-LGBTI rhetoric, and social and other media traffic, are being shaped and driven by these interests. As of March 2023, the anti-LGBTI bill is still pending in Ghanaian parliament. With this report, we provide recommendations to continue exposing the origins of anti-LGBTI hatred in Ghana and guidance on supporting LGBTI rights and reclaiming the narrative from homophobic politicians and other personalities to demonstrate that reactionary narratives against LGBTI rights are not universal in Ghana.
Topic: Laws & Policies
Deslizamiento hacia el nacionalismo cristiano: La expansión global de CPAC a México
La Conferencia de Acción Política Conservadora (CPAC), con sede en Estados Unidos, un evento conocido como nexo para el activismo de derecha, realizará su primer foro en México.
Slide to Christian Nationalism: CPAC’s Global Expansion into Mexico
The U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an event well known as a nexus for right-wing activism, is holding its first forum in Mexico. This brief—written for both opposition researchers and anyone interested in the global anti-rights movement—provides an overview of CPAC’s background and international expansion, with a focus on how CPAC is collaborating with far-right actors in Mexico to advance its Christian nationalist agenda.
Anti-Rights Groups Take Aim at Transnational Trade Agreement
Anti-rights groups and movements are expanding their work into new and seemingly unlikely spaces to impose regressive, fundamentalist Christian views on human rights, family, gender, and sexuality. This briefing paper outlines the activities of three anti-rights groups based in the Global North leading a transnational attack on an economic agreement between the European Union (EU) and its country partners in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) – known as the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement (the Agreement).
Promoting Access to Self-Managed Abortion: Considerations for managing legal risk
This publication, created by Ipas and the Center for Reproductive Rights, is designed to help individuals and groups consider the potential impact of abortion regulations and offer tools to help assess legal risk when supporting access to self-managed abortion.
Expandindo o apoio político para acesso e direitos ao aborto: Lições globais para defensores
Expandindo o apoio político para acesso e direitos ao aborto: Lições globais para defensores
White supremacy is global
Élargir le soutien politique en faveur de l’accès et du droit à l’avortement: Leçons issues des 4 coins du monde pour les personnes chargées de plaidoyer
Advocating for abortion access is unlike advocacy on any other global health-care issue. This publication shares insights and lessons learned by Ipas staff and our partners around the world through decades of advocacy work to expand abortion access. The content outlines key obstacles and opportunities that advocates encounter, plus strategies for overcoming common challenges.
Ampliando el apoyo político a favor del acceso y el derecho al aborto: lecciones mundiales para promotores
Unpacking the Texas abortion ban: White supremacy in the anti-rights movement
A thought-provoking conversation between Ipas President and CEO Anu Kumar and award-winning author, advocate, professor and social commentator Michele Goodwin.
Regional Learning Exchange on Safe Abortion Laws and Policies in Africa
The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), in partnership with Ipas Africa Alliance, held a regional exchange learning webinar on 25 August 2021, hosted by the Africa Coalition for Safe Abortion (ACSA). ACSA is a broad-based coalition of regional health and human rights civil society organizations that are committed to advocate for access to safe and legal abortion services in line with the Maputo Protocol. This one-page fact sheet outlines the discussion and actions taken during the learning exchange.
Expanding political support for abortion access and rights: Global lessons for advocates
Advocating for abortion access is unlike advocacy on any other global health-care issue. This publication shares insights and lessons learned by Ipas staff and our partners around the world through decades of advocacy work to expand abortion access. The content outlines key obstacles and opportunities that advocates encounter, plus strategies for overcoming common challenges.
Improving Access to Abortion in Crisis Settings: A legal risk management tool for organizations and providers
This tool is designed to help program planners and organizations understand abortion law and manage legal risk when providing or supporting access to abortion for people who are displaced by crisis. It provides general guidance and can be used online or in-person and with program teams, field teams, program managers and other decision-makers. It can also be incorporated in risk- and security-assessment processes.
Focus on Nepal: The Harmful Impact of the Helms Amendment on People Seeking Abortion Care
The Helms amendment is a law barring U.S. foreign assistance from being used for abortion services. This fact sheet describes the negative impact of the Helms amendment in Nepal. The country liberalized its abortion law in 2002 and the right to safe motherhood and reproductive health was guaranteed by the 2015 Constitution. In 2018 the Right to Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Act further ensured that women and girls in Nepal have the right to access safe, legal abortion free of charge at public health facilities. Yet due in great part to U.S. funding restrictions like the Helms Amendment, Nepal’s reproductive health care provision is fragmented and needlessly inefficient, putting the most burden on women and girls seeking abortion care.
When abortion is a crime
This two-page fact sheet is adapted from a 2013 Ipas report investigating the impact of criminal abortion laws on women, their families and health-care providers in three South American countries—Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina.
When abortion is a crime: Rwanda.
Rwanda reformed its abortion law in 2012, but legal barriers and cultural and religious stigma make it nearly impossible for women to get a safe, legal abortion. Women with unplanned or unwanted pregnancies resort to unsafe and illegal abortions—and Rwandan police unjustly harass, arrest, prosecute and imprison hundreds of women and girls on abortion or infanticide-related charges each year. This report, by Ipas and Great Lakes Initiative for Human Rights and Development, shares findings from interviews with women, judges, legal defense lawyers, and police officers, and calls on the Rwandan government to take steps to address this ongoing human rights violation.
Making change happen: A review of progressive abortion policy change in Africa
An overview of progressive abortion policy changes and trends in Africa, primarily between 2010-2016. It outlines strategies in regional policy work by Ipas and partners and points to examples of positive policy change, such as national law reform, updated standards and guidelines, commitments by policymakers, and the integration of safe abortion into regional strategies and actions plans on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
A practical guide for partnering with police to improve abortion access
This guide is a resource for advocates, trainers, project managers and technical advisors who design programs and workshops to engage police on abortion issues. Drawing on the work of Ipas and other organizations, it offers practical strategies for partnering with police to address stigmatized issues and promote public health, with a specific focus on abortion. It can be used both in settings where abortion is legal and accessible and in settings where it is highly restricted.
Who can provide abortion care? Considerations for law and policy makers.
For women who want to end their pregnancies, laws that allow only medical doctors to provide abortion are real barriers. Abortion can safely be provided by nurses, midwives, paramedical personnel and other midlevel providers. Women who have correct information can take pills to end a pregnancy safely outside a health facility. However, many abortion laws require the involvement of one or more medical doctors. These laws criminalize women and other health professionals who end pregnancies safely without a doctor. Under doctor-only laws, health systems—particularly in the global south—cannot train enough abortion providers to make abortion accessible to all women. Doctor-only laws discriminate against women who belong to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and who are least likely to have access to medical doctors. Lawmakers need not designate who can provide abortion in the law. Documents such as national health standards and guidelines are better suited to clarify who are authorized providers. This publication explains how Standards and Guidelines, enacted by the Ministry of Health and ideally updated every few years, can reflect the latest scientific evidence in abortion care.
Access to safe abortion and contraception: Vital for young women globally, a priority for U.S. foreign assistance
The United States, as the world’s foreign assistance leader, must play a key role in safeguarding a comprehensive and integrated approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights for young women. This fact sheet outlines policy challenges that deny young women their sexual and reproductive rights and puts forth policy actions the U.S. government should take: expand family planning funding, repeal the damaging Helms Amendment, permanently repeal the Mexico City Policy (also called the Global Gag Rule), and continue to work toward a progressive sexual and reproductive health agenda in platforms like the International Conference on Population and Development and the United Nations.
