Lobbies said lots of unsafe abortions were happening especially in slums across the country
by GEORGE OWITI
24 April 2024
Rights groups have decried what they termed increased mortality rates in the country resulting from unsafe abortions.
The sexual health rights lobby organisations on Wednesday attributed the problem to backward policies, stigma and politics surrounding safe abortion in the country. They include Trust For Indigenous Culture and Health (TICAH) and Women Collective Kenya.
Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.
Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024
Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.
Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.
Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach
BY ELLEN WULFHORST, THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION
Nov 24, 2022
PATTAYA CITY, THAILAND – Women and girls around the world will suffer a knock-on effect from the U.S. decision to roll back abortion rights, experts say, predicting a global clampdown on hard-won female freedoms.
From access to abortion to voting rights, equal pay to equal status, women from Africa to Asia to Europe are expected to feel the fallout of the U.S. decision to reverse Roe v. Wade.
Continued: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/11/24/world/women-rights-abortion/
BY ELLEN WULFHORST, THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION
Nov 24, 2022
PATTAYA CITY, THAILAND – Women and girls around the world will suffer a knock-on effect from the U.S. decision to roll back abortion rights, experts say, predicting a global clampdown on hard-won female freedoms.
From access to abortion to voting rights, equal pay to equal status, women from Africa to Asia to Europe are expected to feel the fallout of the U.S. decision to reverse Roe v. Wade.
Continued: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/11/24/world/women-rights-abortion/
A landmark court case could help activists seeking to revise Kenya's reproductive health policy.
Munyaradzi Makoni
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00693-6
WORLD REPORT| VOLUME 399, ISSUE 10334, P1456, APRIL 16, 2022.
The roll-out of a policy to promote and improve the reproductive health of
Kenyans has been suspended following protests from activists calling for
protection for patients who seek abortion services and the medical personnel
who provide them. On April 6, the Ministry of Health said that a new draft of
Kenya's Reproductive Health Policy 2022–32, which did not make any provision
for abortion, will be produced within 45 days, with civil society given an
opportunity to propose changes.
The decision follows a ruling on March 25 by Reuben Nyakundi, a High Court
judge in Malindi, who declared abortion-related arrests and prosecution
illegal, concluding that abortion care is a fundamental right under the
Constitution of Kenya, adding that protecting access to abortion affects vital
constitutional values, including dignity, autonomy, equality, and bodily
integrity. Although the Constitution allows it, Kenya's 1963 Penal Code still
criminalises all abortion care.
BY CLAIRE WANJA
April 7, 2022
The Ministry of Health has suspended the launch of the Reproductive Health Policy 2022 –2032 and agreed to go back to the drawing board after pushback from a section of Civil Society.
The Ministry on Wednesday met with stakeholders from the reproductive health and human rights sector to discuss key reproductive healthcare interventions that members of civil society highlighted as missing or problematic.
Continued: https://www.kbc.co.ke/government-suspends-launch-of-reproductive-health-policy/
FIGO
22 April 2021
On 18th March 2021, FIGO – in collaboration with the Centre for Reproductive Rights and Ipas – organised a discussion on ‘Access to medical abortion and self –managed abortion. Key insights from health workers and human rights advocates: on guaranteeing human rights’ with United Nations treaty monitoring committee members and Special Procedures mandate holders.
These elected UN experts have a responsibility to interpret human rights treaties, which includes monitoring states’ compliance with their legally binding human rights obligations and recommendations from UN experts. This includes reproductive rights and access to safe abortion. The UN experts do this by conducting fact-finding missions and issuing progress reports and statements, in addition to conducting review meetings with governments to assess their progress.
Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/access-medical-abortion-and-self-managed-abortion
26 NOVEMBER 2020
The Nation (Nairobi)
By Nasibo Kabale
In recent weeks, the country has witnessed a heated debate on the right to health for women as the Senate went into the second reading of the Reproductive Healthcare Bill.
What has been a bone of contention in the Bill is the right to access to sexual and reproductive healthcare as well as the termination of pregnancy which has led to many inaccurately branding it as the 'abortion Bill'. Unsafe abortion remains a leading cause of deaths and injuries related to pregnancy in Kenya.
Nita Bhalla, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Nov 03, 2020
NAIROBI, Nov 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) –
An alliance of Kenyan charities urged the government on Tuesday to withdraw
from a U.S.-led international accord that critics say aims to limit abortion
access for millions of women and girls around the world.
Thirty-three nations, including Kenya, signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration
(GCD) – which was co-sponsored by the United States, Brazil, Uganda, Egypt,
Hungary and Indonesia – on Oct. 22.
Women’s Groups and Funders Respond to Global Gag Rule
Four successful strategies to mitigate the effects of a restrictive funding policy that the Trump administration reinstated.
By Leila Hessini
Apr. 10, 2019
As one of his first acts as president of the United States, Donald Trump reinstated a policy prohibiting organizations from receiving US government aid if they provide services, referrals, and advocacy related to abortion abroad. In late March 2019, the Trump administration expanded this policy to include subcontractors serving groups that provide or discuss abortion.
The United States is the world’s largest donor to global health, and abortion-related services are often integrated into general health care involving HIV, contraceptives, and families. The policy, known as the Mexico City Policy and dubbed the global gag rule by women’s groups to reflect the act’s intentions and impact, was first introduced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Since then, each Democratic president has rescinded it and each Republican president has reinstated it. Under Trump, the policy covers all $8.8 billion in US global health aid, nearly 15 times the reach of previous iterations.
Continued: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/womens_groups_and_funders_respond_to_global_gag_rule#
Back street abortions on the increase even as debate rages on
By Akello Odenyo
Published Mon, May 28th 2018
Rose Otieno was seated behind her desk at the clinic flipping through a newspaper when a familiar face on the obituary section caught her attention. As she read through the obituary, details of the familiar face became clearer. “The picture on the obituary wasn’t anything close to the face she wore the last time I saw Elizabeth,” recounted Otieno.
Otieno, a healthcare service provider, said Elizabeth (second name withheld to save family members from embarrassment) had walked into her clinic two weeks earlier, explaining that she wanted to terminate her eight-week pregnancy.
Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/article/2001281972/360-women-in-kenya-procure-abortion-daily
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