Ipas Zambia Director: Grace Tambatamba-Chiyaba Although abortion is legal in Zambia, the barriers to accessing safe abortion care are formidable. Doctors are in short supply, and there is a strong and persistent social stigma surrounding abortion. Very few women know...
Ipas South Africa Director: Caroline Mbi-Njifor Abortion has been legal in South Africa since the enactment of the 1996 Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. But unsafe abortion is prevalent and particularly impacts poor women and girls and those who live in rural...
Ipas Nigeria Director: Lucky Palmer Unsafe abortion is one of the most significant and preventable causes of maternal death and injury in Nigeria, which has one of the world’s highest maternal death rates. Abortion is illegal except to save the life of the woman, and...
Ipas Mozambique Director: Jorge Matine In 2014, with the goal of reducing maternal deaths, Mozambique liberalized its abortion law to greatly broaden women’s access to safe abortion care. Women in Mozambique now have the right to a legal abortion upon request during...
Country Director, Ipas Malawi: Pansi Katenga Malawi’s abortion law is one of the most restrictive in Africa, as it only permits termination of pregnancy to save a woman’s life. This leads many women and girls to end unwanted pregnancies in unsafe, clandestine...
Keeping the promise: Ipas Ghana’s 14 years of action to expand safe abortion careThe availability of safe abortion care in Ghana was more of a promise than a reality when Ipas Ghana launched its national program in 2006. A fairly liberal abortion law had been enacted...
Ipas Francophone Africa Director: Sosthène Dougrou There are more than 1.8 million unsafe abortions in West Africa each year. An assessment of abortion care needs and opportunities in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa conducted in 2015 found there is “a vast unmet need”...
Ipas Ethiopia Director: Saba Kidanemariam After liberalizing Ethiopia’s abortion law in 2005, the government implemented programs to train health-care providers, equip facilities and expand the services they offer—and integrate abortion care into broader reproductive...
In Kenya, unsafe abortion has long been recognized as a leading cause of death and injury for women. Under the new Kenyan constitution, abortion is legal under certain circumstances, but many providers have still not been trained in safe abortion care, and women...
Languages: Regions: Countries: Topics:
Other LanguagesThis situational assessment, conducted by Ipas in collaboration with international and in-country agencies in March-May 2015, looks at comprehensive abortion care (CAC) needs and opportunities in francophone West...
Other LanguagesL’analyse situationnelle, effectuée par Ipas en mars et mai 2015 en collaboration avec des agences internationales et des organisations nationales actives dans ce domaine a permis d’étudier les besoins et les...
This report looks at initiatives in four countries—Nigeria, Nepal, Ghana and Zambia—where Ipas is working with governments, communities and other partners to provide clinical and programmatic support to providers and health-care facilities.
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...
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.Languages: [wpv-post-taxonomy...
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...
When Ipas Mozambique Country Director Jorge Matine was in secondary school, his fellow students knew him as someone they could go to with questions about sexual and reproductive health. “Everyone has something to ask, something they want to know,” he says. He was a peer educator and close with his mother, who “was very open—I […]
Two young reproductive rights champions in Ghana speak out Samuel Lamptey grew up around women—he has 11 sisters. This experience has helped him understand and empathize with the issues women face, including unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion. “We cannot make progress if we don’t understand the issues of women,” he says. Lamptey and his colleague, Aku Dzifa Amenyedzi, are young reproductive rights champions in Ghana, and both have […]
As the head of the Ghana Police Public Health Department, Dr. Samuel Otu-Nyarko knows the consequences of unsafe abortion. “Every year,” he says, “you look at the statistics from the Ghana Health Service and you see a high proportion of women who are dying because of unsafe abortion.” Women and girls in Ghana have broad […]
After Fiona*, a university student in Kenya, learned she was unexpectedly pregnant, she became depressed. Her parents are strict, and she was nervous to visit them, afraid that her mother would find out. If she continued the pregnancy, Fiona would likely have to drop out of university. She would experience stigma from becoming pregnant before […]