Law will save girls, women
Contraceptive pills. Some 19 million women cannot access modern contraception
What you need to know:
- Some 19 million women cannot access modern contraception while 2.5 million are at risk of death due to complications from unsafe abortions.
- The ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence against women and girls has worsened amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the past year, 39,000 children in East Africa were born with HIV while 62,000 mothers died from childbirth complications. These cases could have been easily prevented. An estimated 200 million girls and women are said to have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). Besides, cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in African women, at 94 per 100,000.
Some 19 million women cannot access modern contraception while 2.5 million are at risk of death due to complications from unsafe abortions. The ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence against women and girls has worsened amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
But on February 12, the East African Legislative Assembly withdrew a bill that, if adopted, would have advanced access to accurate information and quality services and protect the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and girls.
The EAC Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) Bill 2017 sought to protect the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls in the region for their entire life.
Anchored in the universal health coverage frameworks in Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda, it would also comprehensively address the challenge of teenage pregnancy, ensuring that girls have access to information and can make decisions about their reproductive health.
It provided for re-entry into school for pregnant schoolgirls, vital amid the explosion in teenage pregnancies during Covid-19.
The law would protect persons with disabilities and the old by prioritising their sexual and reproductive needs, promote menstrual hygiene and address men’s sexual and reproductive health.
The East African Community’s vision “to be a prosperous, competitive, secure and united East Africa” will never be realised if we continue to treat the health and welfare of women and girls as secondary.
Let Eala’s Committee on General Purpose, mandated to re-draft the bill, ensure that this is rectified.
Mr Mwangi is a sexual and reproductive health youth advocate. @alvinmwangi254
