Breaking the Silence: Abortion Rights in Kenya – BBC Africa Eye documentary

BBC News Africa
Nov 26, 2023
Film: 45 minutes

Across the world, debates are raging about access to safe abortion. Complications from unsafe, backstreet procedures are a leading cause of maternal death in developing countries. In Kenya, where almost two-thirds of pregnancies are unintended, unregulated terminations are estimated to claim the lives of over 2,000 women every year.

BBC Africa Eye reporter Linda Ngari investigates a hidden crisis that has led to an estimated seven Kenyan women dying from unsafe abortions every day, with many more facing life-altering complications.

Continued: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3AKMFgVKQ

Kenya abortion: Women go to backstreet clinics amid legal ambiguity

Legal ambiguity over abortions in Kenya is pushing thousands of women to turn to backstreet clinics. BBC Africa Eye explores how abortion is shrouded in stigma and misinformation.

26th November 2023
By Zoe Flood, Linda Ngari & Tamasin Ford, BBC Africa Eye, Nairobi & London

Edith is lying on a bed covered in old newspaper in a backstreet clinic in Nairobi.

Her legs are held high by stirrups while a man in a white medical coat explains he is about to put some medicine inside her uterus. A red bucket of bleach containing medical instruments sits on the floor.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67473183

Millie Odhiambo, Esther Passaris Team Up To Translate Kenyan Movie Into Law

By Richard Kamau
Friday, 31 Mar 2023

Nairobi Woman Rep Esther Passaris and Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo attended the premiere of ‘Prayer For The Departed’, a Kenyan film based on the true story of a 14-year-old school girl who was raped and died after a botched abortion.

The film, which premiered at Prestige Cinema last weekend, is based on the life and death of JMM who was raped, tried to obtain a backstreet abortion from a local quack, was denied lifesaving hospital care at government facilities, and eventually died of kidney failure.

Continued: https://nairobiwire.com/2023/03/millie-odhiambo-esther-passaris-team-up-to-translate-kenyan-movie-into-law.html

31.03.2023

Film, Art, Books

Esther Passaris

Family Reproductive Healthcare Bill

Millie Odhiambo

Nick Smith

Prayer for the Departed

Africa

Kenya

Human Rights

Kenya – Give adolescents contraceptives to address cases of teen pregnancies

By Esther Kimani
Nov 28, 2022

As the world population clocked eight billion recently, more than 3,500 delegates from across the globe gathered in Pattaya City, Thailand, for the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP).

The conference attended by key women’s rights advocates from Kenya, including Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris, provided a global stage for countries, organisations, and individuals to make important commitments, celebrate achievements, and interrogate barriers to the realisation of Reproductive Health goals, including access to contraception.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/opinion/article/2001461905/give-adolescents-contraceptives-to-address-cases-of-teen-pregnancies

Kenya: The New Cold War Over Access to Safe Abortion in Kenya

22 SEPTEMBER 2022
Inter Press Service

By Stephanie Musho and Ritah Anindo Obonyo

Nairobi — Fatuma is a 24 year old girl from Korogocho, an informal settlement
in Nairobi. She died in December 2021, from complications arising from an
unsafe abortion. Her friend and a few of her neighbors found her bleeding
profusely and unable to move. They rushed her to the hospital. Unfortunately,
she died before she could see the doctor.

Unfortunately, Fatuma's story is common for girls and women in Kenya. In fact,
at least 7 of them die every day from complications arising from unsafe
abortion. Worse still, is that with current trends - where 700 girls between
the ages of 10 and 19 are getting pregnant daily; the harrowing statistics on
abortions are likely to be worse. If Fatuma knew where she could access safe
abortion services, she would not have died.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202209230002.html

Women in Kenya Are Using Knitting Needles to End Their Pregnancies. Blame Donald Trump.

The president has given fringe anti-abortion groups unprecedented influence.

OCTOBER 8, 2020
By NEHA WADEKAR

On a rainy morning in May 2019, Dr. John Nyamu was attending to patients on the cluttered first floor of an office building in downtown Nairobi when he heard raucous shouts from down the street. A caravan of protesters was winding toward him, a few hundred people teeming in the streets, bellowing through loudspeakers, and stopping traffic.

As the crowd reached his building, Nyamu, a well-known gynecologist who performs abortions in a private clinic, peered through his window at the protesters below to make out what they were saying. It turns out they were targeting him. “Abortion is murder! Abortion must go! Nyamu must go!” Some held signs with photos of mutilated fetuses. Others clutched baby-size cardboard coffins with crosses on them.

Continued: https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/10/08/abortion-kenya-knitting-needles-donald-trump/

08.10.2020

anti-choice protesters

Austin Ruse

Bethany Kozma

C-Fam

Center for Family and Human Rights

CitizenGO

Dr John Nyamu

Esther Passaris

Family Health Options Kenya

Global Gag Rule

Human Life international

International Conference on Population and development

John Nyamu

Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops

Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board

Kisumu Medical and Education Trust

sexual and reproductive health

Sophie Hodder

Uhuru Kenyatta

UNFPA

United Nations Population Fund

US Agency for International Development

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

Kenya split over campaign to give women the right to safe abortions
MP Esther Passaris says lives are being put at risk in a country where 40% of pregnancies are unplanned

Ginger Hervey in Nairobi
Tue 17 Mar 2020

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.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/17/kenya-split-over-campaign-to-give-women-the-right-to-safe-abortions