We women who are free sex workers and without spouses are often victims of sexual assault and forced pregnancies. Dishonest customers get rid of the condom during sex; in addition, many of us are ignorant and exploited by clients who opt for the “report without a condom” and then we have to cope with the result, which is forced pregnancy and maternity. Most of us have unsafe abortions, resulting in serious morbidity and complications, even death – with the only alternative being infanticide or forced abandonment of babies, because we cannot take care of them. We are prosecuted by the justice system and imprisoned …
Indeed, although in the DRC abortion is killing, abortion is practised in both public and private health facilities, where services are offered in an “informal way” to those who can pay. We marginalized women cannot access these services, in a context where even contraceptive provision is limited to women who are accompanied by their husbands.
In addition, the National Protocol of Holistic Care for Survivors of Sexual Violence includes emergency contraception in the post-exposure prophylaxis kit (PEP) for victims within 72 hours after sexual assault. However, the social stigma, the guilt laid on us by the medical staff often does not allow us to access these pills within those deadlines. However, we believe that if emergency contraception is permitted to protect the victim who presents within 72 hours after rape, to protect against forced pregnancy, then medical abortion pills would simply be a safer alternative for comprehensive protection and holistic care.
Existing sex education and behaviour change communication programmes are narrowly addressing sexual and reproductive rights issues, including the right to abortion. Unable to support the costs of unplanned and unwanted births, and the health, psychosocial and economic consequences (maternal deaths, unwanted and abandoned children), some of us rely on untrained, informal medical practitioners for abortion, with all the risks involved. Very few victims of incomplete, unsafe abortions present to the hospital in time for post-abortion care; silenced for fear of prosecution, they are afraid they will be stigmatized and made to feel guilty by society and the medical profession, and that they will not be able to pay the fees imposed by doctors.
It is against this background that the Group of Women Living with HIV (GFV-HIV) organized awareness-raising events to secure the commitment and support of 240 influential advocates for access to safe abortion and reduction of abortion stigma. We have also organized numerous other activities, see our report in French.
FULL REPORT (en français)