Celebrating International Safe Abortion Day
On September 28, International Day for Safe Abortion, Ibis’s Johannesburg, South Africa team organized a march to advocate for safe, high-quality abortion care and reproductive justice for all in collaboration with Ipas Africa Southern Region, AMAZE.org, Accountability International, Sonke Gender Justice, the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Coalition (SRJC), SECTION27, along with Ibis’s mmoho campaign.
This year’s theme — #AbortionSolidarity in our communities — spoke to letting communities lead, with literacy and support from technical partners in advancing equitable access to safe and legal abortions.
Participants in the march provided the public with information on safe and legal abortion facilities by placing QR-coded stickers over posters advertising illegal abortion services. The march was attended by over 150 young people from all over Gauteng, South Africa. It provided them with an opportunity to express their need for comprehensive information about their sexual and reproductive health rights. In addition, the young people emphasized the importance of accessing safe, high-quality, and compassionate abortion care.
“Stigma is a very important issue in this country where we have a very liberal policy and where [abortion care] is accessible, but stigma is still very much persisting and I think how we call attention to reducing stigma is through collective action like today. We’re not here by ourselves, we’re here with other partners in the space, who are actually in support of safe access to abortion services, and also we want to target the health sector as well. The providers, and the people in the facilities and that means training them and giving them opportunities for values clarification training to increase access.” — Jewelle Methazia, Ibis Reproductive Health
Ibis Reproductive Health Research Manager, Jewelle Methazia, spoke with eNCA to share more about the goals of the march:
Additional media coverage
Abortion Access in the South African Context
The section below is an excerpt from Ibis’s statement celebrating International Safe Abortion Day. You can read the full statement here.
While South Africa’s legal framework has ensured the fundamental right to abortion care, we recognise that the reality in our communities is not always reflective of that. We recognise the major impediments that are currently facing women who want to access safe abortion services, including stigma, play a key role in the proliferation of illegal abortions outside of formal health settings. Furthermore, according to a 2023 report by SECTION27 titled “Abortion Services in the Eastern Cape”, there were several other barriers to accessing safe abortions. These included “the inaccurate designation of second trimester abortion facilities, [an] insufficient number of abortion providers to meet the demand for the service, inadequately trained abortion providers, lack of equipment for timely provision of the service, and shortages in abortion medicines.” These are echoed in a 2024 study by the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Coalition (SRJC), which also found legal complexities and administrative practices related to “refusal to care” were barriers. Worryingly, mifepristone, which is critical for partially self-managed abortions (together with misoprostol) has had significant stockouts. The SECTION27 report also found that 10 of the 13 facilities monitored in the province had only one abortion provider, despite them collectively being approached by an average of 1,200 women seeking abortions every month for first trimester abortions. In addition, only two out of the five facilities designated to offer abortion services beyond 13 weeks gestation across the province were able to do so.
In 2023, Ibis conducted a mixed method study with adolescent girls aged 12 to 17 in Gauteng to determine their knowledge and experiences with Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services and the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, which governs abortion. This study showed that 22% of participants had experienced an unplanned pregnancy, and were more aware of ways to end a pregnancy using unsafe abortion methods, as opposed to safe abortion methods. Furthermore, stigma from healthcare workers (HCW) was identified as a recurring issue contributing to both unplanned adolescent pregnancy and unsafe abortion, and participants explained they avoid accessing care at clinics largely to avoid the treatment they receive from nurses when seeking contraceptives or abortion services. Ibis plans to release these findings in the near future.
