Unsafe abortions worry women movement

By Ann Zulu.....

THE Zambia National Women’s Lobby has observed that there is need to scale up utilisation of modern contraceptives and promotion of abstinence among women to prevent death and other complications that comes as a result of unsafe abortions.

ZNWL chairperson Beauty Katebe

ZNWL chairperson Beauty Katebe bemoaned the continued deaths of women from unsafe abortions in the country.

She observed that unsafe abortion had dangerous effects that could lead to various complications in women.

“Women need to adopt family planning methods to avoid pregnancy and even sexually transmitted diseases, and the best advice we can give them is to abstain from sex as the best way of avoiding pregnancy.

“They should not engage in sexual activities if they don’t want to get pregnant because unsafe abortions come with serious complications which are very regrettable,” Ms. Katebe said.

She reiterated that it was more dangerous for pregnant women to use concocted materials to terminate their pregnancies.

Ms. Katebe also observed that the girl child was the most vulnerable to unsafe abortion.

She urged school girls to avoid unsafe abortion and its related practices and be more focused on their education.

“In most cases, school girls are the victims of unsafe abortions, they are so vulnerable. Parents and guardians need to emphasise more on telling them the importance of abstinence.

‘‘Girls should be encouraged to concentrate more on education and their ambitions; sex will always be there, but should be done at the right time when one is ready,” she said.

Ms. Katebe indicated that according to the Zambian law on abortion, safe abortions could only be performed by health personnel at a hospital under prescribed conditions.

Ms. Katebe urged journalists to be strong advocates against unsafe abortion by reporting more on its effects, stressing that everybody was a stakeholder in the promotion of a healthy society.

“Journalist have an important role to play in this because if they can report more on this issue and its complications, more women would become aware and won’t even consider having an abortion,” she said.