By Tione Andsen

Lilongwe, September 29, Mana: Centre for Solutions Journalism (CSJ) has appealed to government to expedite the enactment of the Termination of Pregnancy Bill.

The Chairpersons for CSJ, Josephine Chinele made the appealed Saturday in a statement in Blantyre where Malawi joins the rest of the world in commemorating the global day of action for access to safe and legal abortion on September 28 every year.

She said the National Assembly need to allocate adequate resources to support the prevention of unsafe abortion by scaling up the provision of contraceptives and to continue scaling up post abortion care services.

“The Executive, the Judiciary, the National Assembly, state human rights institutions and civil society organizations to use their power and mandate to protect the realization of sexual and reproductive health rights,” Chinele added.

Board member of CJS, Rev. Martin Kalimbe said religious and community leaders to vigorously promote abstinence among their members and subjects so that unwanted pregnancies, some of which result in unsafe abortions are reduced.

“All the citizens to remain steadfast in claiming their sexual and reproductive health rights,” he said. 

This year’s International Safe Abortion Day, statistics from medical facilities regarding the number of women and girls experiencing complications from unsafe abortions show that the nation's abortion law, which was passed in the colonial era in 1930, is not only out of date but has utterly failed to lower the number of unsafe abortions.

As seen by the rising number of women seeking post-abortion care in government health facilities, the current law has only succeeded in pushing over 141,000 women and girls seeking abortions in the country to herbalists, witchdoctors, and certain traditional birth attendants where they suffer grave complications.

The Statistics for the first half of this year show a persistently high number of women and girls experiencing complications from unsafe abortions. In Lilongwe, from January to June, 1,041 women and girls required treatment for complications related to unsafe abortions.

In Dedza, 830 women and girls sought post-abortion care during the same period, while health facilities in Dowa provided services to 381 women and girls.

This alarming trend of women sustaining injuries from clandestine abortions and subsequently arriving at hospitals in critical condition, some with ruptured uteruses, is evident across all districts and cities in the country.

The issue of unsafe abortion remains significant, and the establishment of Post Abortion Care Units in every government district hospital is one of the testimonies of this problem.