Looking back on the successes of the International Safe Abortion Day 2021

10 December 2021
FIGO Advocating for Safe Abortion Project

For International Safe Abortion Day (ISAD), marked on 28 September, the 10 national member societies FIGO supports through its Advocating for Safe Abortion Project developed educational activities and awareness-raising campaigns in their countries and communities.

“International Safe Abortion Day is about making what is often ignored – the preventable pandemic of unsafe abortions - visible. As a committed health care community we come together to demonstrate what solutions must be implemented. Together with our partners, we raise our voices to dismantle abortion-related stigma which is the enemy of women/girls’ right to claim access to safe abortion – time-sensitive essential health care. This year from Latin America to Africa we are proud to share the efforts of our OBGYN member societies, and all that they are doing to stand up for women/girls’ health care and human rights.”
– Jessica Morris, Senior Project Manager, Advocating for Safe Abortion Project, FIGO

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/looking-back-successes-international-safe-abortion-day-2021

Using music as a tool to fight against maternal and child mortality in Mozambique

10 September 2021
FIGO
Eunice Themba, AMOG

The Associação Moçambicana de Obstetras e Ginecologistas (AMOG) recently worked with musicians in Mozambique to release a song on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), with a focus on access to safe abortion. As part of an awareness-raising campaign, AMOG organised an event for adolescents at Josina Machel Secondary School with musicians Yolanda Kakana from Banda Kakana, and Sistah Áfrika.

Using music to raise awareness of the right to safe abortion
Art, in general, and music, in particular, can – and should – contribute to the fight against maternal and child mortality. Yolanda Kakana and Sistah Áfrika wrote the song “Dura Realidade” (Hard Reality), which tells the story of a girl who intends to end an unwanted pregnancy, to raise awareness of this issue in Mozambique.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/using-music-tool-fight-against-maternal-and-child-mortality-mozambique

OBGYNs in Mozambique call to strengthen gender equality and access to safe abortion

FIGO
30 April 2021
Eunice Themba, Project Manager, AMOG

In a year that saw access to reproductive health services diminish due to
COVID-19 and associated restrictions, International Women’s Day 2021 provided a
welcome opportunity to reflect on, learn about and advocate for important
women’s health topics, including access to safe abortion. Unsafe abortion
remains a huge cause of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity.

The World Health Organization estimates that around 13% of maternal deaths are
attributable to unsafe abortion, and that around 3 in every 4 abortions in
Africa and Latin America are unsafe. According to the 2011 Demographic Health
Survey, unsafe abortion was a leading cause of preventable maternal death in
Mozambique, one of ten countries in FIGO’s Advocating Safe Abortion Project. In
order to reverse this dramatic situation that affects girls and women, the new
Penal Code of 2014 was approved (law Nr 35/2014 of December 31st), that was
revised in 2019 (Law Nr 24/2019 of December 24th), which included, in Article
168, the modalities that make abortion non-punishable.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/obgyns-mozambique-call-strengthen-gender-equality-and-access-safe-abortion

Safe Abortion Advocacy across the air waves in Mozambique

8 January 2021
Eunice Themba, Project Manager, AMOG

Standing in solidarity with women and girls to mark the 2020 global campaign of 16 days of activism to end gender based violence (GBV), the Mozambican Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (AMOG), together with its partner Mozambique Radio, launched an information campaign to spread awareness of Mozambique’s abortion law.

Radio listeners in Sofala, Maputo, Tete, Nampula and Xai Xai tuned in to Mozambique radio and participated in a series of radio call-in shows to ask questions and provide thoughts on how awareness and understanding of Mozambique’s abortion law could be strengthened.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/safe-abortion-advocacy-across-air-waves-mozambique

08.01.2021

Featured

News

Advocacy for Safe Abortion

AMOG

Emilia Goncalves

Eunice Themba

Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group

Mozambican Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Mozambique – Training Providers on Law and Clinical Norms

Training Providers on Law and Clinical Norms

02.03.2020
FIGO

Mozambique liberalised its abortion law in 2014, granting legal abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and longer term limits in cases of rape, incest and foetal anomaly. FIGO National Member Society, The Associação Moçambicana de Obstetras e Ginecologistas (AMOG), was proud to support this change in law.

Clinical norms to guide treatment were also made available, and benefitted from AMOG’s technical expertise while being developed. However, barriers that prevent women accessing abortion care remain; although we have the law in place, it is often not being implemented.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/training-providers-law-and-clinical-norms-0016330

In Mozambique, Canadian aid funds a rare service: safe abortions

In Mozambique, Canadian aid funds a rare service: safe abortions
In an African nation where abortion was only recently legalized, the barriers to access are public education, medical training and money. An $18-million Canadian project is trying to help, and Mozambicans say it’s saving lives

Geoffrey York, Africa Bureau Chief
Manica, Mozambique
Published February 25, 2020

For years, the blood supply at Manica District Hospital was falling to worryingly low levels. So many women needed emergency transfusions, after undergoing dangerous abortions at home, that its blood stocks often became depleted.

“They would come here almost in shock from hemorrhaging,” said Flora Diomba, clinical director of the hospital in central Mozambique. “Women were trying to get rid of their pregnancy at any cost.”

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-in-mozambique-canadian-aid-funds-a-rare-service-safe-abortions/

Africa: Unsafe Abortion – Neglected Emergency

Africa: Unsafe Abortion - Neglected Emergency

Mar 4, 2019

Unsafe abortion still accounts for at least one in 12 maternal deaths globally. And, compared to reductions in all the other direct causes of maternal deaths since 1990 - severe bleeding, severe infection, blood pressure disorders and obstructed labour - there has been little improvement in the negative impact of unsafe abortion.

Unsafe abortion is a procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards or both, as defined by the World Health Organization. Abortion, whether safe or unsafe, is a common event worldwide: approximately one in four pregnancies ended in an induced abortion during the period 2010-2014.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/201903040646.html

How a change in U.S. abortion policy reverberated around the globe

How a change in U.S. abortion policy reverberated around the globe
Health-care workers in Madagascar and dozens of other countries have faced new obstacles since Trump signed an order tying U.S. aid to antiabortion rules.

By Max Bearak and Carol Morello
Photo and video by Carolyn Van Houten
Oct. 10, 2018

BETSINGILO, Madagascar — Nana thought for a second, and then shook her head. Donald Trump? No, never heard of him.

Her humble, earthen home and field of cassava are about as far from Washington as it gets. She lives in Madagascar, an impoverished island hundreds of miles off the coast of Africa — and tiny Betsingilo is a week-long trip by bus from the country’s capital.

The distance has not stopped Trump’s foreign policy from affecting people’s lives here.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/how-a-change-in-us-abortion-policy-reverberated-around-the-globe/

SAFAIDS brings ‘She Decides Southern Africa’ to Namibia

SAFAIDS brings ‘She Decides Southern Africa’ to Namibia

By Southern Times
Aug 20,2018
Lahja Nashuuta

Windhoek - Gender activists from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region launched the She Decides Southern Africa campaign on 13 August in Windhoek.

The campaign, part of a global effort to protect women and girls, was launched along with the 10th edition of the SADC Gender Protocol Barometer ahead of the 38th SADC Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government held from 17 to18 August 2018.

Continued: https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/safaids-brings-she-decides-southern-africa-to-namibia

Trump’s Ban On Funding For Overseas Abortions Has Some Little-Known Exceptions

Trump's Ban On Funding For Overseas Abortions Has Some Little-Known Exceptions

June 13, 2018
Nurith Aizenman

It was one of Donald Trump's first acts as President: a Jan. 23, 2017 executive order that cuts off U.S. support to foreign groups unless they promise not to "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning." This includes providing patients with referrals or information about the procedure, even if those activities are funded by non-U.S. government sources.

Every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has adopted a variant of the "Mexico City policy" — so called after the city where it was first announced. And every Democratic successor has reversed it.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/13/616906884/trumps-ban-on-funding-for-overseas-abortions-has-some-little-known-exceptions