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Survivors of rape and incest in five African countries are being prevented from accessing safe abortion even though they are entitled to it by law, a landmark study has found.
Published since last year Donald Trump’s electionThe first study of its kind explains how unsafe abortion Is putting women’s lives at risk in countries like cut US aid The crisis increased further.
In Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire, survivors of sexual violence theoretically have the right to safe abortion. But the Dutch sexual health research group Rutgers and the Benin-based Center de Recherche en Reproduction Humaine et en Demographie (CERRHUD) found that the laws, which existed on paper, were not being enforced.
The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with survivors of sexual violence and their families, as well as health workers, lawyers, and community groups. They also reviewed the laws and policies in each country.
In Togo, 16-year-old Laure* was raped by a neighbor and immediately told her mother. After delays, including waiting for her father’s permission, she was taken to a health center to be examined five days later – too late to find evidence of an attack or be given emergency contraception. When she found out she was pregnant, the health center began the legal proceedings necessary to get her abortion care, but when nothing progressed after two months, Laure’s mother helped her daughter get an illegal abortion rather than allow the pregnancy to progress further.
In Benin, when a 17-year-old girl reported an assault, the prosecutor told her rapist to “come to our house and resolve the matter amicably,” her mother told researchers.
In Burkina Faso, a community leader told interviewers, “When a girl is raped, it brings shame to the whole family.
“The parents prefer to resolve it within the family. They go to the boy’s family, talk. Sometimes they ask for money to compensate for the crime, sometimes they press for marriage to hide the shame. But going to the police means the entire neighborhood will know. And then the girl will never be able to marry.”
Women and girls interviewed for the report often did not know that they should seek medical care immediately after rape, or that they had the right to an abortion in these circumstances. Health workers were often unaware of what they could legally provide and were afraid to offer abortion without proper guidelines or training.
Families were documented trying to prevent survivors of sexual violence from reporting – sometimes to protect perpetrators who were also community members. Researchers found cases of relatives driving survivors from their homes or forcing them to marry their attacker.
Jonah Both, researcher on the report, said the findings show, “It’s not enough to have these rights on paper. It’s really about the implementation of these rights and ensuring access to safe services for women and girls. And unfortunately, we see that coming under increasing pressure with new funding cuts.”
“No one should have to risk their life for safe abortion care,” she said.
In West and Central Africa, 3.4 million women undergo unsafe abortion each year, the highest rate in the world.
The report said that across sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 42 percent of pregnancies were unintended and 37 percent of these ended in abortion – the majority of which were unsafe. This makes it a leading cause of death, especially among teenage girls and young women, who are tempted to drink unsafe herbal mixtures or undergo invasive procedures that can lead to infection, bleeding, and death.
When Trump took office for the second time, he eliminated all family planning funding worth hundreds of millions of dollars for low-income countries. this has led to critical contraceptive shortages And millions are at risk of unplanned births, unsafe abortions and deaths.
Dr. Both said that access to post-rape care and safe abortion was directly impacted by the budget cuts.
She added, “We know that these global funding cuts are also going to significantly impact access to post-abortion care, and for many of these women and girls it is a last resort.”
“It’s only when they’re forced to try something at home that they can now legally access health care,” she said, including seeking emergency help after an unsafe abortion.
Along with funding, researchers encountered other obstacles. For example, legal proceedings are often necessary to obtain an abortion on the grounds of rape.
After experiencing sexual violence, survivors should also receive contraceptive counseling, but these contraceptives are “no longer widely available” or “come with high costs for women and girls,” Dr. Both said.
A US State Department spokesperson said that a rule re-introduced by Trump prohibited providing assistance “directly or indirectly to foreign non-governmental organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning”. This also includes centers distributing contraceptives, the spokesperson said.
,Names have been changed to protect identities
This article is part of The Independent Rethinking global aid Project