Category Archives: Reproductive rights (developing countries)

‘Women always take the brunt’: India sees surge in unsafe abortion

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Low priority for reproductive health during lockdown leaves millions unable to access contraception or safe terminations

Sadhna Gupta* discovered she was pregnant just after India imposed a crippling lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The 21-year-old from the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar didn’t want to be pregnant. With no public transport available, clinics closed and Bhubaneswar at a standstill, she bought an abortion pill without consulting a doctor. While what she did was not unusual, Indian law requires a prescription for the pills from a licensed medical professional.

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Denied beds, pain relief and contact with their babies: the women giving birth amid Covid-19

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Following reports worldwide, experts are warning that pandemic is pushing back progress on prenatal and maternity care

After Denisa’s son was born premature at 26 weeks she was unable to hold him, but spent as much time as possible near his incubator so he could get used to her voice. By the time he was well enough to be held by his mother, a state of emergency had been declared in Slovakia and Denisa was told to vacate her bed and leave the hospital to make way for Covid-19 patients.

The rush of patients never came, but strict rules meant she was unable to see her baby until he was discharged six weeks later. “Instead of a hug, I went home empty-handed only with my head full of questions,” she says. “Each day without my baby was taking away my strength and harming my mental health.”

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Rwanda to release 50 women jailed for having abortions

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Activists welcome pardons, but call for relaxation of abortion laws and an end to punitive measures such as life sentences

Rwanda is to release 50 women who were jailed for having abortions after a personal pardon was issued by the country’s president, Paul Kagame.

Human rights activists welcomed the pending release of the women, six of whom had been given life sentences – the highest penalty available to the courts – two serving 25 years and the others terms ranging from 12 months to 20 years.

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US demands removal of sexual health reference in UN’s Covid-19 response

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Campaigners condemn letter from USAid’s John Barsa, calling it ‘a disgraceful and dangerous attack on essential health services’

Civil society groups have condemned calls by the Trump administration to remove references to sexual and reproductive health from the UN Covid-19 humanitarian response plan (HRP).

In a letter to the UN secretary-general António Guterres on Monday, John Barsa, the acting administrator for the US agency for international development (USAid), called on the UN to “stay focused on life-saving interventions” and not include abortion as an essential service.

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‘Calamitous’: domestic violence set to soar by 20% during global lockdown

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Data from the UN population fund, outlining increases in abuse, FGM and child marriage, predicts a grim decade for many women

At least 15m more cases of domestic violence are predicted around the world this year as a result of pandemic restrictions, according to new data that paints a bleak picture of life for women over the next decade.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has also calculated that tens of millions of women will not be able to access modern contraceptives this year, and millions more girls will undergo female genital mutilation or be married off by 2030.

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Archbishop of Uganda urges women to use contraception during lockdown

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Family planning group hails Stephen Kazimba Mugalu’s break with Anglican tradition, but Catholic officials brand advice immoral

The new archbishop of Uganda has become the first primate of the country’s Anglican church to embrace the use of modern contraceptives after urging women to be “very careful” to avoid getting pregnant during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The ninth archbishop of the church of Uganda, Stephen Kazimba Mugalu, said in a televised Sunday sermon he is “really concerned” that many women will get pregnant during the nationwide shutdown. On Tuesday, President Yoweri Museveni extended the initial 14-day lockdown for a further three weeks.

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Declare abortion a public health issue during pandemic, WHO urged

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Charities press World Health Organization to ensure women can get contraception and safe abortions during crisis

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    • The World Health Organization is being urged to declare abortion an essential health service during the coronavirus pandemic.

    In guidance notes issued last week, the WHO advised all governments to identify and prioritise the health services each believed essential, listing reproductive health services as an example.

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    Coronavirus crisis may deny 9.5 million women access to family planning

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    Charity warns loss of services caused by lockdowns could result in millions of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions

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    • Up to 9.5 million women and girls could miss out on vital family planning services this year because of Covid-19, potentially resulting in thousands of deaths.

    Marie Stopes International warned on Friday that travel restrictions and lockdowns could have a devastating affect on women as they struggle to collect contraceptives and access other reproductive healthcare services, such as safe abortions, across the 37 countries in which it works.

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    ‘A big wake-up call’: survey shows work still to be done on women’s sexual rights

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    Efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030 are being hampered by lack of progress on reproductive health issues, says UN body

    Almost half of women and girls living in more than 50 countries around the world are not able to make their own decisions about their reproductive rights, with up to a quarter saying they are unable to say no to sex, a new survey has found.

    The findings, published by the UN population fund (UNFPA) on Wednesday, have been described as a “big wake-up call” in global efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030.

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    Kenya split over campaign to give women the right to safe abortions

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    MP Esther Passaris says lives are being put at risk in a country where 40% of pregnancies are unplanned

    The pills arrived with no instructions. Delivered on a Sunday to Joy’s home in Kayole, an informal settlement in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, by someone she didn’t know.

    She had ordered them because she was pregnant, and didn’t want to be. At 19, she said, she couldn’t support a baby, and the father had stopped answering his phone after she told him. Desperate, she had asked an older friend, who said she knew someone who could help.

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    Faulty condoms leave charity facing court case in Uganda

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    Two men sue over alleged HIV and gonorrhoea infections that they claim were caused by defective contraceptives

    Two Ugandan men have taken court action against an international charity for distributing faulty condoms which, they claim, led to one of them contracting HIV and the other gonorrhoea.

    In a lawsuit, Joseph Kintu and Sulaiman Balinya say they bought Life Guard condoms from stores supplied by the Marie Stopes organisation in Uganda in October last year.

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    The contraceptive helping refugee women plan their families

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    Instead of becoming ‘factories for babies’, women who’ve fled South Sudan to Uganda are trying new options for managing their reproductive health

    Christine Lamwaka and her husband gathered their six children and fled. It was April 2017 and their town in South Sudan had just been attacked. They walked for two days from Eastern Equatoria before crossing the border into Uganda.

    “It was hard to flee with the young children. We struggled to run. I thought we couldn’t make it alive,” says Lamwaka, who was 22 at the time of the attack.

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    Uganda recalls a million faulty condoms

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    Charity takes action after holes are discovered in two batches of Life Guard condoms

    The charity Marie Stopes International is recalling more than a million condoms in Uganda, after officials raised concerns that they were prone to breaking.

    The charity began the recall of packets of Life Guard condoms after the National Drug Authority found they contained holes and did not meet quality standards. More than half of the affected products have since been recovered.

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    Family planning schemes must offer options other than abortion, says US

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    Campaigners urge global action on reproductive rights as US comments embolden anti-choice groups at Nairobi summit

    The US will only support family planning programmes that offer alternatives to abortions, a senior policy adviser has told a conference in Nairobi.

    In a statement that has emboldened anti-choice groups in the city, Valerie Huber, the US special representative for global women’s health, also told a summit on population and development that her country sought to combat gender-based violence by investing in programmes that respected the rights of women and girls, but didn’t compromise “the inherent value of every human life – born and unborn”.

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    Cost of ending maternal deaths laid bare as $115bn funding shortfall revealed

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    UN urges major push to meet targets as researchers at Nairobi summit also sound alarm over family planning and violence

    The global push to stop mothers dying unnecessarily in childbirth, meet family planning needs and end violence against women could be undermined by a massive funding shortfall, researchers have found.

    World leaders have pledged to redouble efforts to end preventable maternal death, satisfy family planning demand and stop violence and harmful practices against women and girls by 2030.

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    Access to contraception falling far short of global targets – report

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    Family planning services are reaching more women, but population growth is hampering efforts to reach 2020 goal

    More women and girls in low income countries are using family planning than ever before, but global efforts to widen access to contraception are still falling well behind targets, according to a report.

    One year away from a global deadline to widen access to modern forms of family planning, such services are accessible to less than half of the women that policy makers hoped to reach.

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    ‘I’ve read how people get catfished’: sex education around the world

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    To mark International Day of the Girl, we asked teenage girls around the world how they learned about sex and relationships

    A quarter of a century ago, a landmark conference recognised reproductive rights and women’s equality as central to sustainable development. But many girls worldwide still face a struggle to access information about sexual and reproductive health, with far-reaching consequences.

    To mark International Day of the Girl on Friday, we’ve asked teenage girls around the world about their experience of sex education. How did they learn about sex and how did this shape their view of relationships? Can they access contraceptives? Are they able to resist pressure to have sex?

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    Nepal’s family planning clinics feel the force of Trump’s global gag rule

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    Brutal cuts to US-funded reproductive health services threaten to throw progress in the south Asian country into sharp reverse

    Devendra Amgai lost his job in November. The 42-year-old public health professional was working in one of Nepal’s more remote districts, distributing contraceptives to women.

    The project was proving successful. With little alternative access to medicines or healthcare, local women were seeking out the clinic in ever-increasing numbers.

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    UK promises extra £600m for family planning in poorest countries

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    Majority of funding will go to UN population fund, which works across countries with highest maternal death rates

    The UK government has pledged to spend an extra £600m to support family planning programmes in some of the world’s poorest countries.

    Most of the money, which will be rolled out between 2020 and 2025, will be given to the UN population fund (UNFPA), which works in 150 countries, including the 46 with the highest rates of maternal deaths and lowest rates of modern contraceptive use.

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    El Salvador rape victim who suffered stillbirth faces murder retrial

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    Evelyn Beatríz Hernández Cruz gave birth in a toilet and was initially jailed for 33 months before successful appeal

    A rape victim who delivered a stillborn baby as a teenager is facing decades in prison for aggravated homicide as prosecutors in El Salvador seek to prove she deliberately induced an abortion.

    On Thursday, Evelyn Beatríz Hernández Cruz, 21, from a poor rural family in Cojutepeque, will go on trial for the second time in a case that highlights the aggressive criminal persecution of Salvadoran women who suffer obstetric complications.

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