Care and compassion over colonialism: Namibia must protect women and girls seeking abortions

This past week, we have watched with great interest and hope as Namibia’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Social Development and Family Affairs held its first four days of public hearings on whether to reform its Abortion and Sterilisation Act of 1975.

These historic hearings are the result of years of grassroots activism by Namibian youth and women’s rights groups. 

The pro-choice movement gained momentum in the second half of 2020, with protests organised throughout the country calling for an end to femicide and sexual and gender-based violence, and demanding the repeal of existing abortion laws inherited from the apartheid era. A petition launched by activist Beauty Boois to liberalise abortion laws in Namibia garnered 62,000 signatures, an unprecedented feat in a conservative society.

Over the past four days, health and rights advocates from the Voices for Choices & Rights Coalition, as well as medical doctors and representatives from the Ministry of Health, have made a case for the legalisation of abortion in Namibia — highlighting the catastrophic health and rights impacts of the current legislation. 

As it stands, the law only allows abortion under very restrictive conditions: in cases of incest, rape and in acute medical emergencies. Even then, the process of obtaining a legal abortion is so cumbersome that it is rendered practically impossible. As a result, young girls and women in Namibia who wish to terminate their pregnancies have little choice but to resort to unsafe abortions. 

Every year, an estimated 500 Namibian women die due to these unsafe abortions — this accounts for a staggering 12-16% of the country’s maternal deaths. 

In Namibia, as in the rest of the world, the criminalisation of abortion does not bring down abortion rates, nor does it address the root causes of unwanted pregnancies. It simply puts the poorest and most disadvantaged women at greater risk of economic and social hardship from unwanted pregnancies and exposes them to medical complications from unsafe abortion. As one activist said at the hearings: “Every pregnancy in Namibia should be a wanted pregnancy.”

These hearings in Namibia are an opportunity for grassroots civil society organisations (CSO) and activists to bring the country closer to truly respecting Namibian women’s health and reproductive rights. 

We can only hope and strive for the country to follow in the steps of  South Africa, Cape Verde, and, as of yesterday, Benin, three countries on the continent that have liberalised abortion laws. Of course, these laws are not a panacea for all the problems women face, but they are a crucial and necessary first step.

Beyond Namibia, health and rights activists throughout Africa have strived for decades to rescind many colonial-era inherited authoritarian legislation and advance the protection of the rights and freedoms of all, including vulnerable minorities such as LGBTQI. In the past decade, Lesotho, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana and Seychelles have decriminalised homosexuality. In 2006, South Africa became the first nation on the African continent to allow gay marriage.

In Namibia, as in the rest of the world, the criminalisation of abortion does not bring down abortion rates, nor does it address the root causes of unwanted pregnancies. (Photo: nationaladvocatesforpregnantwomen.org / Wikipedia)