Pledge for the development of policies and adoption of a law in favor to safe abortion access in Cameroon

Pledge for the development of policies and adoption of a law in favor to safe abortion access in Cameroon

In Cameroon, it is difficult to say how many girls and women die or develop very complicated health problems as a result of clandestine abortion unless one has conducted a thorough research and gotten the right statistics. Getting these statistics right is a great problem because for some reasons, people don’t talk about their abortion experiences. These reasons include the fact that, abortion is an illegal practice in Cameroon and so victims feel intimidated and fear being incarcerated.

Another reason which has been observed as to why people hardly speak about abortion experiences in the society if because of religion, cultural and family background restriction. The fear of being looked down on by the society because one committed an abortion pushes victims to clandestine abortion.

In a study published by the international federation of gynecologist and obstetrics abbreviated as FIGO, they state that, “legal restrictions on abortion do not reduce the problem of abortions but rather pave way for more abortions that are unsafe. Organizations and groups of people have embarked on a journey of research on this particular topic but no matter how they try; the results have not been fully satisfying. This is where Dynamic femmes steps in.

Amplify Change has sponsored a project with Dynamic Femmes being the main actor. This project aims to pledge for laws and policies that will enable women and girls have access to safe abortion there by fighting the problem of clandestine abortion in Cameroon. During this project, Dynamic Femmes aims to equip the team and key actors of the project with essential knowledge on the concept of “Do No Harm”. This means that they should be able to handle cases of post clandestine abortion without making the victims feel responsible or guilty of their current situation. Reach out to as many girls and woman as possible who have lived the horror of clandestine abortion with the intention of recording enough statistics that other projects have not been able to attain. Dynamic Femmes will equally be creative in their communication strategies, using mean stream Medias and social Media. The result of this project is to enable law makers in Cameroon to see reasons why safe abortion access is a must and not an option.

LISA MBIYBE