Leaders of 10 African countries, including Kenyan Vice President Moody Awori, on Tuesday during a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, called for the legalization of safe abortion procedures to curb maternal mortality, Kenya's Daily Nation reports. Awori addressed the three-day conference for women leaders to discuss international and regional human rights agreements to reduce maternal mortality, which included representatives from Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

According to the Daily Nation, officials called for "political commitment" and "clear legal grounds" to curb unsafe abortions on the continent. A protocol on women's rights in Africa that authorizes safe abortions in cases of rape, incest, and when continued pregnancy endangers the life or health of the pregnant woman or fetus has been ratified by 21 countries on the continent. Kenya and Uganda have signed but not ratified the protocol, while Botswana, Central Africa Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan and Tunisia have neither signed nor ratified it.

"The ratification of the protocol is high on Kenya's agenda," Awori said in a speech read on his behalf by assistant minister Hussein Maalim. "It is sad to learn that 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion each year and, out of these, 30,000 are in Africa," Awori said, adding, "We could simply say there is one unsafe abortion for every seven live births in Africa."

He noted that 10,000 to 15,000 secondary school girls in Kenya drop out of school annually due to unplanned pregnancies. "Without recourse to termination of the unplanned pregnancy, their personal development is usually curtailed and the nation losses their development potential," Awori said, adding, "At worst they die at the hands of unqualified abortionist. This needs to be remedied" (Barasa, Daily Nation, 6/27).

Catholic Bishops, Antiabortion Group Protest Public Session Discussing Legalization of Abortion in Kenya
In related news, an antiabortion group on Tuesday attempted to disrupt a mock tribunal on illegal abortions held by the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Reproductive Health and Rights Alliance, the Daily Nation reports (Wafula, Daily Nation, 6/27).

According to Sarah Onyango, regional director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, abortion is banned in Kenya, but some physicians perform safe abortions for women who can afford them. The tribunal aimed to hear the testimony of women who have undergone clandestine abortions, as well as physicians and midwives who perform them (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 6/18).

The groups hosting the tribunal said they aimed "to publicize the negative consequences of the criminalization of abortion in Kenya." They added that the "denial of a pregnant woman's right to make an independent decision regarding abortion violates or poses a threat to a wide range of human rights."

However, a statements signed by all the Roman Catholic bishops in the country condemned the tribunal, saying, "A state which legalizes abortion most definitely abdicates a very basic reason for its own existence." The bishops said that it is "important ... to note that abortion has never put an end to women's social distress but that it simply adds a personal tragedy," adding that "there is no reason or motive that can ever objectively confer the right to dispose of another's life" (CISA/AllAfrica.com, 6/26).

According to the Nation, the antiabortion group that disrupted the meeting accused the forum organizers of "advancing a foreign agenda" and called for a "more representative sitting" at the meeting. Health assistant minister Enoch Kibunguchy, who arrived to the forum during the protest, said it showed how controversial the abortion issue is and called for a rational debate on the subject (Daily Nation, 6/27).