Since the liberalization of Nepal’s abortion law in 2002, intensive provider training and facility support have proven successful strategies for increasing the availability of comprehensive abortion care (CAC) services in the country. However, little is known about the pathways through which women access safe abortion services. This publication presents research on how women in Nepal access safe abortion information and services, including evidence-based recommendations indicating that increasing contraceptive education and access to female community health volunteers can improve women’s ability to manage their reproductive health.

This booklet describes Ipas’s community work with vivid stories and narrative from Ipas staff and partners in the field—from Ethiopia to Mexico.

This guide focuses on ways to plan, implement, use and finalize an assessment of how young women and their communities relate to abortion, through locally relevant, community and/or youth-led processes. It is designed to gain insights into the local context surrounding abortion care for young women to inform program design and to support meaningful youth participation in project design. It is a global resource for community groups, youth groups, peer educators, trainers, administrators, program managers and technical advisors of abortion care programs.

This is a fact sheet highlighting women’s perspectives on abortion care as part of operations research in Zambia.

This is the first in a series of fact sheets highlighting Zambia operations research study.

Este juego de herramientas fue creado para proporcionar información y orientación sobre la prestación y accesibilidad de servicios de aborto inducido a mujeres jóvenes (entre 10 y 24 años de edad), según corresponda. Ofrece a capacitadores con experiencia antecedentes, materiales, instrucciones y consejos necesarios para facilitar las sesiones de capacitación de manera eficaz. Dado que los estudios de investigación realizados muestran pocas diferencias en las necesidades clínicas de las mujeres jóvenes en comparación con adultas, el juego de herramientas contiene más información sobre promoción y defensa (advocacy), alianzas y prestación de servicios que sobre temas clínicos. Es un recurso mundial para prestadores de servicios de salud, capacitadores, gerentes y asesores técnicos de programas de servicios de aborto, pero algunos materiales también se pueden utilizar para promover la participación de jóvenes, formuladores de políticas grupos comunitarios, donantes, promotores y otras partes interesadas.

Elaborados después de una investigación realizada con jóvenes en la Ciudad de México y en Tlaxcala, Atrévete a pensar diferente es una serie de tres historietas —Embarazo, Anticonceptivos, y Relaciones afectivas—que ofrecen información a jóvenes de cómo prevenir un embarazo, cómo utilizar y negociar el uso anticonceptivos y cómo mantener un relación afectiva con equidad de género. Las historietas invitan a las y los jóvenes a pensar diferente sobre su sexualidad, su salud y sus derechos.

Elaborados después de una investigación realizada con jóvenes en la Ciudad de México y en Tlaxcala, Atrévete a pensar diferente es una serie de tres historietas —Embarazo, Anticonceptivos, y Relaciones afectivas—que ofrecen información a jóvenes de cómo prevenir un embarazo, cómo utilizar y negociar el uso anticonceptivos y cómo mantener un relación afectiva con equidad de género. Las historietas invitan a las y los jóvenes a pensar diferente sobre su sexualidad, su salud y sus derechos.

Elaborados después de una investigación realizada con jóvenes en la Ciudad de México y en Tlaxcala, Atrévete a pensar diferente es una serie de tres historietas —Embarazo, Anticonceptivos, y Relaciones afectivas—que ofrecen información a jóvenes de cómo prevenir un embarazo, cómo utilizar y negociar el uso anticonceptivos y cómo mantener un relación afectiva con equidad de género. Las historietas invitan a las y los jóvenes a pensar diferente sobre su sexualidad, su salud y sus derechos.

From 2011-2012, Ipas and our partners implemented a series of classes on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)—including information on safe abortion—for women who work at factories across Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley. This report explains how our project increased women workers’ knowledge of SRHR topics so they can better manage their own health and relationships and serve as resources for their families and communities. The report includes background information on Ipas’s work with youth, the context of sexual and reproductive health services for women workers in the Kathmandu Valley, details on the project’s various components, and explanation of key outcomes.

Despite being a considerable percentage of the population, people with disabilities are grossly underserved and neglected by sexual and reproductive health services, particularly those focused on safe abortion and contraceptive care. While donors, sexual and reproductive health program implementers, universities and activists are beginning to examine the needs and rights of people with disabilities, considerable gaps persist in the specific areas of safe abortion and contraceptive care.

This guide is a resource for program implementers and managers, technical advisors and trainers who design interventions to improve access to abortion and contraceptive care. It offers strategies for improving disability inclusion in policy, service delivery and community engagement interventions and can be adapted to meet the unique needs of each context. Recommendations are based on the human rights model of disability, which includes a “twin-track” approach that promotes the empowerment of people with disabilities by creating disability-specific initiatives and integrating disability inclusion in general programming. Active and meaningful participation of people with disabilities throughout all stages of planning, implementing and evaluating abortion and contraceptive care interventions is a core principle underlying each recommendation included in this guide.

Since the liberalization of Nepal’s abortion law in 2002, intensive provider training and facility support have proven successful strategies for increasing the availability of comprehensive abortion care (CAC) services in the country. However, little is known about the pathways through which women access safe abortion services. This publication presents research on how women in Nepal access safe abortion information and services, including evidence-based recommendations indicating that increasing contraceptive education and access to female community health volunteers can improve women’s ability to manage their reproductive health.

Since the liberalization of Nepal’s abortion law in 2002, intensive provider training and facility support have proven successful strategies for increasing the availability of comprehensive abortion care (CAC) services in the country. However, little is known about the pathways through which women access safe abortion services. This publication presents research on how women in Nepal access safe abortion information and services, including evidence-based recommendations indicating that increasing contraceptive education and access to female community health volunteers can improve women’s ability to manage their reproductive health.

This resource is primarily intended to help legal and policy advocates utilize the concept of privacy to support providers in guaranteeing women’s right to confidential abortion care. Health-care professionals may also find the resource provides useful guidelines on protecting patient privacy. Included is a review of providers’ ethical obligations to maintain confidentiality, a review of human rights protections related to privacy in health care, and an analysis of how confidentiality is treated in different national laws. This resource will also show that requiring providers to report women suspected of obtaining unlawful abortions violates protections of privacy and confidentiality under international human rights law.

This publication highlights the critical role Ipas Nepal has played in the introduction and expansion of safe abortion services in Nepal since 2002, when abortion was decriminalized. Between July 2011 and December 2013, services provided in Ipas intervention facilities averted an estimated 50 maternal deaths, more than 22,000 unsafe abortions, and saved more than $450,000 in direct health-care costs.

From 2012 to 2014, Ipas Zambia implemented the Comprehensive Abortion Care for Young Women pilot project in Lusaka Province to improve young women’s access to, use of and involvement in youth-appropriate, high-quality abortion care. This brief focuses on the first two objectives of the pilot project, which sought to address young women’s rights and needs related to abortion care and to document how comprehensive abortion care services can be made more appropriate for young women through youth participation in all aspects of the project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

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.

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.

En este librito se describe el trabajo de Ipas con la juventud para promover sus derechos sexuales y reproductivos. Con hechos y explicaciones concisas —más historias de Nepal, Sudáfrica y Ecuador—el librito destaca los retos que enfrentan las personas jóvenes y las oportunidades que tienen para ser líderes y trabajar con personas adultas para diseñar políticas y servicios de salud que sean adecuados para la juventud.