47,000 Women Die From Unsafe Abortion

Raphael Ahenu Jnr

Raphael Ahenu Jnr



Raphael Ahenu Jnr
Statistics available to DAILY GUIDE suggest that approximately 47,000 women die from unsafe abortion complication each year globally.

According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, young women accounted for approximately 45 percent of the estimated unsafe abortion-related death.

The Chief Executive Officer of Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF), a civil society advocacy organisation, Raphael Godlove Ahenu Jnr, disclosed this during a day’s training workshop on safe abortion for 75 opinion leaders in Sunyani.

The opinion leaders, he said, were being trained as safe abortion advocates so that they could raise public awareness about the negative effects of unsafe abortion in society as part of the implementation of a three-year project dubbed: ‘Advocating For Young People Access To Safe Abortion And Contraceptive Services In Brong-Ahafo’.

Mr Ahenu further disclosed that adolescent girls in developing countries undergo at least 2.2 to 4million unsafe abortion each.

He indicated that research has also shown that in sub-Saharan African, over 60 percent of unsafe abortion is found among women younger than 25 years.

In his view, the extremely high number of young women who continue to resort to unsafe abortion makes it critical to ensure that young women, independent of marital status, have access to safe abortion and family planning as part of comprehensive healthcare services.

The GLOMEF boss stated that restricting access to safe abortion violates the human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination.

‘GLOMEF supports efforts to liberalise restrictive abortion laws and urge states to take all necessary measures to rescind criminal penalties for women based on their personal reproductive decision.

‘We call for a stronger global commitment to safe and legal abortion in the new development framework for the post-2015 era,’ he added.

The Project Co-ordinator, Victor Fosu Boamah, mentioned that the safe abortion campaign has so far been taken to 12 senior high schools in the eight project districts namely, Sunyani East and West, Techiman, Kintampo, Wenchi and Dormaa municipalities as well as Tano North and Jaman South districts.

The Chairman for the occasion, Afena Sam, noted with concern the rate at which young girls were dying in Ghanaian communities of unsafe abortion.

He, therefore, called for consensus efforts to address the situation, while appealing to parents to have greater responsibility towards their children by educating them on sex.

There were various presentations on the law and availability of abortion service in Ghana; abortion methods, complications from unsafe abortion, cost of abortion as well as the appropriate contraceptive for adolescents.

FROM Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako, Sunyani
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