Uganda – Hundreds receive free medical as Interim Advisory Committee on East Africa Pro-Choice Movement holds health and legal camp in Isingiro

NELSON MANDELA | PML Daily Reporter
October 9, 2024

SINGIRO – Annet (not real name), a young woman from Isingiro, Uganda, found herself in a precarious situation last December. Despite being unprepared for motherhood, she became pregnant. Feeling uncertain and scared, she hid the news from her partner and turned to abortion tablets recommended by a friend.

“A friend recommended abortion tablets, which I used. I bled that night and assumed the pregnancy had terminated.”

Continued: https://www.pmldaily.com/features/health/2024/10/hundreds-receive-free-medical-as-east-african-advisory-committee-on-abortion-campaigns-for-reproductive-justice-in-uganda.html#google_vignette


‘It’s needless death’: Ugandan activists decry restrictive abortion laws

Abortion is generally illegal in Uganda, and fear of imprisonment leads many to resort to extreme and unsafe practices.

By Sophie Neiman
Published On 28 Sep 2024

Kampala, Uganda – At exactly 3:21pm on August 25, Moses Odongo received a call informing him that his 14-year-old cousin Christine had died attempting to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Odongo, who is 40, had just returned home and was sitting down for a drink and a bite to eat. His grief at her untimely death quickly mixed with anger at Uganda’s restrictive abortion laws and conservative culture, which he believes killed her.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/9/28/its-needless-death-ugandan-activists-decry-restrictive-abortion-laws


Uganda – Iway Community Development Network tackles abortion stigma

NELSON MANDELA | PML Daily
September 27, 2024

KAMPALA – In preparation for International Safe Abortion Day, Iway Community Development Network Ltd conducted a targeted training for healthcare workers at Arirang Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. The training aimed to address provider bias, particularly towards young abortion seekers, which remains a significant barrier to youth-friendly healthcare.

Provider bias contributes to high maternal mortality rates among young people seeking sexual and reproductive health services. The training emphasized respectful and non-discriminatory interactions between healthcare providers and abortion seekers, ensuring a supportive environment for vulnerable individuals.

Continued: https://www.pmldaily.com/features/health/2024/09/iway-community-development-network-tackles-abortion-stigma.html#google_vignette


We need to talk about how U.S. policy is sabotaging reproductive rights in Africa

A controversial US policy is jeopardizing family planning services and fueling a maternal health crisis in Ethiopia and Uganda.

By Annabel Rocha
May 20, 2024

The lack of reproductive health services in Uganda and Ethiopia leaves those experiencing unwanted pregnancies with few options, and poorer communities with even fewer. Only 13 to 16% of poor, married women in Uganda use modern contraception, according to Guttmacher, resulting in four in 10 births being unplanned. In Ethiopia, 4.5 million women have an unmet need for modern contraception, with 46% of the estimated 4.6 million pregnancies in the country unintended. To support family planning services, these governments rely on international and U.S. funding, which has devastating consequences for health initiatives when support is withdrawn.

Continued: https://www.reckon.news/family/2024/05/how-us-policy-is-sabotaging-reproductive-rights-in-africa.html


Project 2025 Is Already Here

Core aspects of the far-right plan to overhaul U.S. government are already being put into place, through an anti-abortion influence campaign overseas.

GILLIAN KANE
APRIL 25, 2024

When pundits, critics and supporters discuss Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s readiness work plan for a second Donald Trump presidency, it’s always in the future tense. At more than 900 pages, Project 2025’s playbook, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, is a door-stopper of policy recommendations that lays out detailed steps for decimating democracy in the first 180 days of the new administration. Some executive orders include eliminating the Department of Education (“a woke education cartel”), renaming the Department of Health and Human Services the ​“Department of Life,” and anchoring these commitments in the promise to restore ​“the family as the centerpiece of American life.”

This Christian nationalist plan is no fever dream: even if Trump loses in November, many core aspects of Project 2025 will still be implemented. In fact, some of its recommendations are already underway.

Continued: https://inthesetimes.com/article/project-2025-protego-trump-huber-abortion


Uganda – UNFPA-Dutch’s ANSWER Programme empowers millions in sexual reproductive health in West Nile, Acholi

NELSON MANDELA | PML Daily Reporter
April 4, 2024

KAMPALA – Over 2.8 million people including young (10-19 years), women of reproductive age (15-49 years), sexually active men, refugees, survivors of gender-based violence and persons living with disability in West Nile and Acholi have been empowered in sexual reproductive health, courtesy of Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ANSWER) Programme.

The four-year programme by the United Nations Population Fund – UNFPA Uganda with funding from The Embassy of the Netherlands in Uganda was aimed to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health, realize reproductive rights, and reduce maternal mortality to improve the lives of women, adolescents and youth, enabled by population dynamics, human rights and gender equality.

Continued: https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2024/04/unfpa-dutchs-answer-programme-empowers-millions-in-sexual-reproductive-health-in-west-nile-acholi.html


Ugandan court upholds anti-gay law, citing U.S. anti-abortion ruling

GEOFFREY YORKAFRICA BUREAU CHIEF, JOHANNESBURG
April 3, 2024

Uganda’s constitutional court has upheld most provisions of the country’s anti-gay law, one of the world’s harshest, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent abortion ruling as support for the decision.

The law, which authorizes the death penalty for the vaguely defined act of “aggravated homosexuality,” was largely upheld in the 203-page court judgment on Wednesday, after a legal challenge by human rights activists.

The court struck down four of the law’s provisions, including criminal penalties for those who lease premises to gays and those who fail to report suspicions of same-sex relationships.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-uganda-court-anti-gay-law/


Uganda – Family Medical Point rescues Kigungu women from death caused by unsafe abortions

NELSON MANDELA | PML Daily Reporter
March 10, 2024

ENTEBBE – Namakula Josephine is a sex worker in Kigungu landing site, Entebbe. She says in 2023, a client deliberately broke a condom thereby impregnating her.

As a poor lady, she was advised by a friend to use herbal medicine to remove the unwanted baby because she couldn’t raise money for a safe abortion. Little did she know this could cost her life.

“I got a lot of complications, bled a lot, and even some foetus parts remained inside which started rotting,” she narrated.

Continued:  https://www.pmldaily.com/news/2024/03/celebrating-a-woman-family-medical-point-rescues-kigungu-women-from-death-caused-by-unsafe-abortions.html


Ugandan Women Risk Their Lives to Access Abortion

“Many girls are dying because we have chosen to ignore them.”

Friday, 8 March, 2024
Culton Scovia Nakamya

For Jovia (not her real name), 2023 was the worst year of her life. The 20-year-old business student was gang-raped at a drunken house party in the Kampala suburb of Kansanga and six weeks later realised that she was pregnant.

“I wondered what I am going to tell my parents. For God’s sake, I am just in my second semester of year one, and I didn’t know who did it,” she said.

Her options were limited, as abortion is illegal in Uganda except under rare circumstances. She confided in a female friend, who suggested they visit the Kampala suburb of Nakulabye, an area known as a hub of clinics that administer clandestine abortions, mostly to students.

Continued: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/ugandan-women-risk-their-lives-access-abortion


Uganda – The Sabotage Movie Premiere: A Film with a Social Cause

JAVIRA SSEBWAMI | PML Daily Staff
February 16, 2024

The long-awaited premiere of Sabotage took place last night at the Century Cinemax Acacia Mall in an elegant affair attended by players in Uganda’s arts industry, representatives from development organisations, celebrities and film enthusiasts.

Brought to life by Reach A Hand Uganda (RAHU) in partnership with Sauti+ Media Hub and Nabwiso Films, the film is directed by Mathew Nabwiso and stars Stella Natumbwe, Sharifa Ali, Jjemba Dean Austin, Denid Kinan and others in a rollercoaster drama set around a traditional wedding (‘kwanjula’) exploring sexual violence, abortion and tradition to raise awareness around Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) in Uganda.

Continued: https://www.pmldaily.com/features/entertainment/2024/02/the-sabotage-movie-premiere-a-film-with-a-social-cause.html