IRC calls for funding to avert preventable deaths of mothers and girls fleeing war in Sudan

N'djamena, Chad, June 25, 2023

Over two months after the outbreak of war in Sudan, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warns of preventable maternal deaths and illnesses if funding for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services continues to be culled. Among refugees from Sudan in Chad, women and girls represent nearly nine in ten individuals, with 25% of them of reproductive age and 5% are currently pregnant.

Aleksandra Roulet-Cimpric, Country Director for the IRC in Chad, said, “Slashing both public and private funding for sexual and reproductive health over the last two years has already had devastating consequences and the situation is set to deteriorate. Funding cuts could result in up to two million unintended pregnancies globally as a result of contraceptive supply shortages.

Continued: https://www.rescue.org/press-release/irc-calls-funding-avert-preventable-deaths-mothers-and-girls-fleeing-war-sudan


Call to review procedures, laws, that ensure access to legal abortion by rape victims in Sudan

December 11 - 2022

A workshop focusing on legal abortion in Sudan has called for amendments to procedures and laws regarding rape victims’ rights to legal abortion, and suggests a raft of training courses for police, medical professionals, and members of the media, to increase awareness when dealing with victims of gender-based violence (GBV).

The two-day workshop, Legal Abortion Workshop, Reality, Challenges and Prospects, was organised in Khartoum last week by the Sima Centre for Training and Protection of Women and Children’s Rights, within the framework of the international 16-day campaign to combat GBV.

Continued: https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/call-to-review-procedures-laws-that-ensure-access-to-legal-abortion-by-rape-victims-in-sudan


Sudan, Where Illegal Abortions remain Dangerous and Deadly

Sudan, Where Illegal Abortions remain Dangerous and Deadly

By Reem Abbas

KHARTOUM, Jun 22 2020 (IPS) - Omnia Nabil*, a Sudanese doctor, who worked in one of the largest hospitals in Khartoum, the country’s capital, was devastated to witness the deaths of 50 young women who had unsafe abortions during a space of just three months.

“I would see 16 cases of failed abortions on a given day. I would insert my hand and pull out syringes or leaves, unsanitary items that were inserted by midwives to induce a miscarriage,” Nabil told IPS.

Continued: http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/06/sudan-where-illegal-abortions-remain-dangerous-and-deadly/


No control, no choice: lack of access to reproductive healthcare in rebel-held Southern Kordofan, Sudan

No control, no choice: lack of access to reproductive healthcare in rebel-held Southern Kordofan, Sudan
June 5, 2017

In December 2016, two Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 90 people in rebel-held areas of Heiban, Delami and Um Dorein counties, including 25 in-depth interviews with women and girls about their access to reproductive healthcare. Researchers also spoke with witnesses and victims of abuse, local rebel authorities, and humanitarian aid workers. This research builds on findings from five earlier Human Rights Watch investigations in the Nuba Mountains region, hilly areas of Sudan’s Kordofan area where communities from different Nuba tribes live, between 2011 and 2015.

In the photograph above, Mukuma Hamad, a volunteer health worker, holds a container of folic acid, the only assistance she can give pregnant women who visit the lone health clinic in Hadara village, in rebel-controlled Southern Kordofan. Most of the women we interviewed did not know what a condom was and had not heard about other options for contraception. NGO workers, health workers and authorities told Human Rights Watch that condoms are rarely available in markets despite an increase in gonorrhea and syphilis cases over the past two years and high percentages of pregnant women testing positive for hepatitis B. Women and girls are unable to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections or control their fertility.

Most pregnant women must rely on local birth attendants who have no formal training, or trained midwives who have not been able to acquire new or sterile equipment since the conflict began. Women and girls experiencing complications during labor may have to travel for days, often on dangerous routes, including across frontlines, to get emergency obstetric care.

Family planning is not available except in rare instances. The rebel SPLM/A-North administration provides the bulk of health care through a network of some 175 clinics, but these do not distribute contraception, including condoms. One agency provides three-month injectable contraception but restrictions imposed on them by the local rebels require patients’ husbands to give permission before they can provide the contraception to women.

[Access to safe abortion is not mentioned.]

SOURCE: Human Rights Watch, 23 May 2017; Photo: © 2016 Skye Wheeler/ Human Rights Watch

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Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/no-control-no-choice-lack-of-access-to-reproductive-healthcare-in-rebel-held-southern-kordofan-sudan/