Unsafe Abortion And Development: A Strategic Approach, IDS Bulletin, 39.3

Despite 80,000 female deaths a year due to unsafe abortions and a higher prevalence of them occurring in developing countries, abortion remains a women’s reproductive health problem instead of a development problem. In fact, it calls for a stronger advocacy strategy for greater consciousness-raising and sensitization. The Campaign Against Unwanted Pregnancy in Nigeria seeks to employ a multi-pronged strategy that seeks to break the silence on unsafe abortion to create climate for discourse, conduct reliable studies to provide data for debate, and employ the data as a tool to rally support for action on women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights in general, and safe abortion specifically. Undertaken primarily through partnering community and faith-based organisations, CAUP seeks to engage policy-makers, the media, CBOs and religious and traditional leaders as part of a strategy to build up a critical mass of advocates that will fight to reduce high levels of mortality caused by unsafe abortion.