New Telegraph

When women encounter rape, unwanted pregnancies

 

In Nigeria, abortion is an issue many would rather avoid than tackle frontally. However, it is something that occurs every day, most of the time, in our communities due to different circumstances. ONWUKA NZESHI reports

 

Precious, a 14-year-old girl, was brought to Abuja by her cousin, Marian, a civil servant and mother of two kids. Marian’s husband, Collins, a fine young man, works with one of the new generation banks in the city.

The idea of bringing Precious to join the family was based on a mutual agreement that since the young couple were gainfully employed and already had kids, there was need for a nanny to assist in babysitting and household chores.

 

Precious was so good at her housekeeping duties that Marian and her husband gave her a free hand to run the home while they concentrated on their jobs. However, it was not long before Collins started having a crush on the young girl and began to nurse some strange ideas about her. One night, he feigned sickness as an excuse for not going to work the next day.

 

While at home, he took the little house help by surprise, raped her and warned her sternly never to tell anyone. The sexual encounter soon became a regular occurrence between the two any time Marian was out of the home to the salon or market.

 

In no time, Precious was pregnant but didn’t realise it until her cousin and guardian discovered she was no longer the little innocent girl she brought from the village to help her run little errands around the home. After much beating, torture and long hours of interrogation, Precious confessed, Collins had been sleeping with her and was responsible for her condition.

 

Somewhere in the neighbourhood, another family is in a trauma, after daredevil armed robbers stormed their apartment, robbed them of all their cash and other valuables. Rahman and Zainab  had retired to their bedroom for a good night rest after a rough day at work.

 

Their four children had equally retired to their bedroom in the expansive three -bedroom bungalow after long hours of watching their favourite movies. But they had hardly engaged the deep sleep gear when they were jolted to their feet by the hard persistent knocking on the main entrance to the apartment.

 

The armed bandits did not just rob their family; each of the four robbers raped Zainab right in front of her husband and children. Much as they tried to keep the ugly incident as a family secret, the husband and wife could not hold it anymore as soon as Zainab discovered she was pregnant. It was an indication that those who violated her had sowed a wild oat in her bosom.

 

These are two scenarios where women and young girls are forced to pass through horrifying experiences. Whenever rape occurs, either of a minor or a full grown adult, women are confronted with difficult choices. In many cases, many women consider abortion as inevitable if they must overcome the trauma. In Nigeria, when women and young girls are pushed to the wall, their situation is further compounded by the lack of access to safe abortion.

 

More often than not, they are compelled to seek abortion services in unhealthy, unhygienic and unsafe facilities run by quack doctors at the back streets of communities. Sometimes women do not even approach any health facility to procure abortion. They simply walk to the nearest patent medicine store where the “chemist” who usually acts as a community doctor, prescribes and dispenses drugs that they believe could induce an abortion and help a woman get rid of an unwanted pregnancy.

 

At other times, young girls would rather consult their friends secretly on what to do. In many instances, they end up adopting very crude measures that are harmful to their health and life, with many dying in the process.

 

Consequences

 

At a recent workshop organised by IPAS Nigeria, a health access rights organisation, the consequences of unsafe abortion were brought to the fore. The three-day workshop which held in Keffi, Nasarawa State, had in attendance journalists from various media houses and deliberated on the a wide range of issues pertaining to Women’s Sexual Rights and Reproductive Health.

 

Country Director, Ipas Nigeria, Lucky Palmer, disclosed that most Nigerian adolescents go to procure abortion after pregnancies occurring from their first sexual experience. Palmer also stated that globally, about 85million unintended pregnancies occur among adolescents every year and half of them end up in abortions.

 

In the same vein, he said, 98 per cent of these abortions occur in developing countries while the remaining two per cent occur in developed countries.

 

This differential is attributable to the vagaries in the laws and policies governing abortion in these two broad climes. By implication, the kind of laws and policies in each country would determine the nature of healthcare facilities and abortion services available in these countries.

 

According to Palmer, a 2015 national study of abortion incidence    in Nigeria revealed the challenges confronting the women. “In Nigeria, only 16 per cent of women of reproductive age use any contraceptive and only eleven per cent use a modern method. That results in almost 10 million unintended pregnancies of which more than half end up in an induced abortion.

 

“In 2012 alone, 1.25 million Nigerian women had an abortion, which is double the number of estimated abortions in 1996. This is partly due to the increased number of women of reproductive age in the country.

 

Almost all of the abortions were performed clandestinely and many of these were performed by unskilled providers or using unsafe methods or both. “An estimated 40 per cent had complications, warranting treatment in a health facility. Similarly, an estimated 212,000 women were treated in health facilities for complications of induced abortion. In addition, an estimated 285,000 women had complications from unsafe abortions serious enough to require treatment in health facilities but did not obtain the care they needed.

 

“As these findings suggest, unsafe abortion is a major contributor to the country’s high levels of maternal death, ill health and disability,” he said. The US gag rule Director, Women Advocates, Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, said the Nigerian situation with regards to women’s sexual health a reproductive rights have been further compounded by the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule by President Donald Trump of the United States.

 

The GAG rule is a US policy that forbids NGOs getting funding from the country’s global health assistance basket from providing abortion services, counselling or referrals regarding abortion, advocate for abortion law reform in their country and conduct public campaign on abortion access.

 

Akiyode-Afolabi said the policy was unfriendly not just to women but to the health sector in Nigeria as it limits the quantum of funds available to players in the sector. She said that with the paucity of funds, the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) whose activities have helped to improve the health sector in Nigeria would be more or less incapacitated to play their roles. “Though the Global Gag Rule was meant to target abortion providers, it had terrible consequences for the health and lives of poor women and their families

 

 

 

in ways that had nothing to do with abortion. “From 2001 to 2009, 20 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East lost U.S.-donated contraceptives, and many organizations and clinics were forced to reduce services, lay off staff, or shut down entirely. “The Global Gag Rule affected family planning, HIV services, maternal and child health, and even malaria services. And in no place did the policy reduce abortions. In fact, the irony is that this policy led to more unwanted pregnancies.

 

“The rule will put thousands of international healthcare workers in the difficult position of deciding whether to continue to offer family planning care that includes abortion at the expense of a critical funding stream.

 

The policy has led to unsafe abortions and a major cause of maternal mortality and kills tens of thousands of women every year, ” she said. Akiyode- Afolabi postulated that apart from Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African countries, other regions that would be negatively impacted by the policy include South Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

 

“In terms of the impact of the GGR on for examples IPPF’s services and clients we serve, we expect cuts to SRHR funding in at least 30 countries and will stand to lose up to $100 million over the next 3 years. “In practical terms, this level of funding could have (over 5 years); prevented 4.8 million unintended pregnancies; prevented 1.7 million unsafe abortions.

 

“We expect some of our Member Associations’ funding could be cut by as high as 30-60 per cent as a result of GGR. We expect to see clinics, community outreach centres forced to close resulting in loss of access to contraception, more unintended pregnancies and more unsafe abortions.

 

“All NGO’s, Non Government Agencies, internationally, regionally and locally in other counties that receive United States aid cannot “directly or indirectly” offer abortion as a course of family planning.

 

“This includes but is not restricted to, providing advice and information about oroffering referral for abortion, even if it is legal in said country, promote changes in a country’s laws or policies related to abortion as a method of family planning”, or conducting public information campaigns about abortion as a method of family planning,” she said.

 

The exceptions However, Akiyode-Afolabi observed, the policy doesn’t prohibit international NGOs from providing advice, referral, or supporting an abortion if the pregnancy causes a severe risk to the life of the mother or was a result of incest or rape.

 

She urged these international NGOs to explore the possibilities of working around these areas of exceptions in finding solutions to the problems of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion in their respective countries.

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