18 Oct 2015

Botswana continues to experience high numbers of unsafe abortions.

Speaking at an abortion dialogue organised by Botswana Family Welfare Association (BOFWA) recently, a midwife at Kasane Primary Hospital Ms Matshidiso Podi said in 2013 to 2015, Kasane hospital registered a total of 225 cases of unsafe abortions. 

Ms Podi said this was a great concern as there might be many unreported abortion cases that took place in the backyard. She indicated that abortions were conducted in a dangerous manner where people used pens to impale the foetus and ulcer medication to terminate pregnancy.

One participant, Ms Grace Jonga, indicated that reasons for women terminating pregnancies varied from unemployment, dysfunctional relationships to men denying that they were the fathers. 

She added that one factor that led to unsafe abortion was that, “most of young women are unemployed and it is very difficult to raise a child alone in such situations, “she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Podi warned of the consequences of abortion such as death due to high loss of blood and septicaemia, mental problems and infertility. She further advised pregnant women to seek medical advice as often as possible adding that they should use family planning methods to avoid unintended pregnancies.

On panelist, senior gender officer in Chobe, Ms Onneile Monna said women needed to be empowered to make wise decisions in their relationships.

She encouraged young women to be heroic in communicating and initiating dialogue on family planning methods with their partners. She said abortion could be prevented and needed collective responsibility.

She pointed out that communication between partners was vital.  She noted that abortion was not a woman issue as it affected both men and women, hence the need to engage men to come up with solutions.

‘’Men are fathers, husbands and our brothers, they need to be engaged in this issues,” she said.

The objectives of the day were to engage the community on abortion issues as well as to hear the community’s perspectives.  Ends