GWIHR Stresses Need For Rights-based Reporting On Abortion

By Uduak Etukudo /Edidiong Obot

UYO

A youth-led and community-based organisation, Greater Women Initiative for Health and Right (GWIHR), in collaboration with IPAS Partners for Reproductive Justice, organised a one day capacity building training workshop on SToP Guidelines and Rights-based Reporting for media professionals in Akwa Ibom State.
The organisation, operating at the subnational level in the southern Nigeria, with a commitment to advancing gender equality, promoting health equity, safeguarding human rights and empowering adolescent girls as well as young women including sex workers and drug users, organised the workshop recently, at its state office located at the Federal Housing Estate, off Abak Road, Uyo.
Presenting a paper on “Rights-based Reporting on Abortion: Empowering Stories and Reducing Stigma” as well as “Promoting Safe Access to Post-Abortion Care (PAC) in Nigeria”, the programme officer, Mr Israel Ezeaku, explained that rights-based reporting centres on human rights which include right to health, bodily autonomy as well as non-discrimination as enshrined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Maputo Protocol, ratified by Nigeria.
Ezeaku explained that in rights-based reporting, stories should be framed around right-holders (women and girls) whom he described as agents, not victims;  as well as duty-bearers (the government and health systems) which he said should be held accountable for safe services.
He maintained that rights-based reporting can transform a tragic incident of unsafe abortion which “focuses on individual misfortune, sensational details or personal blame into an exposé of systemic failure by highlighting how restrictive laws, stigma, inadequate access to safe services, and government’s inaction violate fundamental human rights (such as the right to life, health and non-discrimination)”.
The programme officer maintained that abortion is a health care and a human right but regretted that stigma and restrictive laws violate rights, thereby leading to unsafe practices, stressing that it is unfortunate that in most times, reports focuses more on women and girls blaming them for involving in an unsafe abortion without looking at the gap created by restrictive government policies, structural barriers, among others, that prevent them from accessing quality health care services but rather resort to unsafe methods of terminating their unwanted pregnancies.
Ezeaku pushed for more emphasis of accountability on the path of duty-bearers (the state and health systems), empowerment of rights-holders by centering the woman’s agency and structural barriers she faced and called for policy reforms to prevent future preventable deaths rather than portraying the outcome as inevitable or isolated.
Presenting facts about abortion in Nigeria, the programme officer disclosed that statistics carried out in year 2025 estimated that on a yearly basis, between 1.25 – 2.7 million cases of abortion are recorded, with 46 out of 1000 women falling within the age range of 15 – 49 years, adding that 63 – 70 per cent of this number are unsafe abortions which contribute to 10 – 40 per cent of maternal deaths whereby  between 3000 and 6000 women die annually.
He further stated that young women and girls aged between 15 – 24 are disproportionately affected, with 21.7 per cent of teenagers having unsafe abortion complications and lamented that fear of legal context by medical professionals because abortion is not legalized in Nigeria, poverty, stigma and barriers increase most cases of unsafe abortion and lack of access to post-abortion care in health care facilities.
Ezeaku noted that rights-based reporting reduces stigma by focusing on accountability and empowerment; uses facts to debunk myths surrounding abortion; chooses accurate language that fosters inclusivity, builds trust and saves life, thereby promoting young women’s access to post-abortion care (PAC) and death reduction.
He called on journalists to always come up with news items that demystify abortion portraying women involved in the act as irresponsible or promiscuous and rather write reports that encourage the women to seek care in the right places to prevent needless deaths.