As the film rolled, many of those in the room could not hold back tears. Here was a group of as young women, none of them older than 28 years, narrating the trauma they have had to undergo after procuring unsafe abortions.

The women shared their stories, their faces hidden behind masks fearing that they would be arrested, physically assaulted or stigmatised by either government authorities, anti-abortion groups or families. Word for word, and action for action, they catalogued the difficulties they have had to contend with after failing to access safe abortion services.

Many regretted that they would not have gotten pregnant, in the first place, if they had accessed family planning services or emergency contraceptives.

These testimonies were heard at an Abortion Mock Tribunal organised by the Kenya Human Rights Commission. They aimed at bringing to the fore the far reaching effects of unsafe abortion to individuals, their families, the economy and social development of many African countries as a whole.

Women in other African countries share similar harrowing tales. They blame their suffering on lack of funds to address the twin issues of prevention and management of the consequences of unwanted or ill-timed pregnancies.

The Director of Kenya Women Political Caucus, Ms Deborah Okumu is worried that donor money channeled to countries as budget support may not benefit certain critical issues affecting women. “There has to be certain conditionalities or mechanisms put in place for funding to trickle down to programmes such as reproductive health,” Okumu said.

But Okumu is not alone in her thoughts. Dr Mary Amuyunzu, a reproductive health expert says: “Governments that do not believe in the reproductive rights for women, particularly on issues such as safe abortion, post-abortion care and access to reproductive health services for young people may not allocate resources to these programmes.”

This is evident in several African countries where there is no political goodwill towards reproductive health programmes. This happens when political leadership fails to allocate resources and enact laws that widen the space for women to enjoy their reproductive rights.

While it’s quite clear that archaic anti-abortion laws were inherited from the British and French colonisers, these countries have since revised their own laws, to prioritise reproductive health rights. 

The French Anti-Contraception Law of 1920 remains in force todate in most French-speaking African countries. Yet it has been repealed in France.

In Kenya, the government spends over $300,000 on post-abortion care services every year for women who procure abortion under the hands of quacks. Yet abortion remains a crime in that country. This figure is too low compared to the thousands of women who procure unsafe abortion every year. 

Failure to change these laws and fund reproductive health programmes that ensure access to contraceptives, safe abortion and post-abortion care are to blame for the high maternal mortality rates in many African countries. 

In a paper titled Post-Abortion Care in sub-Saharan Africa: The New Developments, Dr Solomon Orero, says unsafe abortion accounts for between 30 and 54 per cent of maternal mortality cases in sub-Saharan Africa. It also accounts for between 50 and 62 per cent of bed occupancy of all gynecological ward admissions.

A recent report by Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organisation (WHO) further reveals that in 2003, over 66,400 women in developing countries, with a bigger percentage coming from sub-Saharan Africa, died of abortion related causes compared to 100 in developed countries.

Again, other studies have indicated that Africa is the only continent where maternal deaths have been rising in the last seven years.

Without concrete proposals and actions on this front, the Millennium Development Goal number five of reducing maternal mortality by two thirds as at 2015 may remain a mirage.

To reverse this under the new funding modalities, Dr Amuyunzu says funds should be aligned to international instruments such as Maputo Plan of Action and International Conference on Population and Development. These instruments have specific provisions on reproductive health rights for women.

“This is what should happen at the Accra Agenda for Action,” she reiterates.

On the issue of abortion, The Maputo Plan of Action, to which African governments have appended their signatures, says: 

“Enact policies and legal frameworks to reduce incidence of unsafe abortion and unwanted pregnancies. And train service providers in the provision of comprehensive safe abortion care services where national law allows.”

All these commitments require financial and technical resources to actualise them. Yet, many African countries, even after signing this document, are now denouncing it. 

A recent meeting in Arusha on Maputo Plan of Action saw government representatives from the East African countries refuse to sign the final communiqué just because it had the words Reproductive Health Rights. For them, ‘this was giving a blank cheque’ to women to procure abortions.

Reproductive health rights advocates strongly believe such governments will allocate inadequate resources or nothing at all to any programmes around reproductive health rights. For them, conditionalities or another funding mechanism needs to be found to ensure women’s reproductive rights are not trampled on or forgotten in the new funding mechanisms.

Use of Basket Funds for reproductive health managed by a UN agency or any other major reproductive health NGO seems to rank high on the list of interventions.

Dr Nehemiah Kimathi of International Planned Parenthood Federation-Africa Region says a formula that can be used to calculate how much of the money allocated to Ministry of Health or from the budget goes to programmes must be developed to address reproductive health matters such as safe motherhood and abortion.

“With formulas like this, then resources meant for reproductive health issues will be assured and not given at the whims of individuals.”