“Crisis pregnancy centres” with links to the US have been condemned by Uganda’s top reproductive health official for opposing contraception, and instead telling pregnant women and teenagers that they should abstain from having sex.
An undercover investigation by Open Democracy has confirmed that these centres are discouraging contraception — in violation of Uganda government policy. Dr Jesca Nsungwa Sabiiti, Uganda’s reproductive health commissioner, said these centres are not regulated by the ministry of health and are undermining government policy, which encourages contraceptive use. She also expressed concern about centres that provide services for survivors of sexual and domestic abuse without oversight from public institutions. Staff at one centre in Kampala told a teenager she had “consented in a way” to incestuous rape.
Uganda has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy Africa, and almost a third of maternal deaths are of girls and women between 15 and 24 years old. Abortion is illegal in almost all cases, but the government strongly promotes contraception.
Despite the near-complete criminalisation of abortion, hundreds of thousands of abortions are estimated to happen in Uganda each year. In almost all cases, these are illegal procedures and are often carried out in unsafe conditions.
In contrast to state policy, each of the three Ugandan centres contacted by an undercover reporter opposed contraception and promoted abstinence. One centre also warned, incorrectly, that birth control pills manufactured abroad could cause cancer. Each of these centres is affiliated with the religious-right group Heartbeat International. Last week, Open Democracy revealed numerous examples of “disinformation, emotional manipulation and outright deceit” in its global network.
Sabiiti said the government supervises many faith-based health facilities but that these centres are not among them. She said she was surprised to learn that they existed. She was also alarmed. One of these, Wakisa Ministries, has been celebrated for sheltering pregnant teenagers. But even its own website casts doubt on the difference it is really making: it says that only 137 of the 1 720 girls sheltered since 2005 returned to school after giving birth.
Founded in 1971, the US group Heartbeat now has a presence on “every inhabited continent” and says it is a “non-profit federation of faith-based pregnancy resource centres, medical clinics, maternity homes and non-profit adoption agencies”.
There have been efforts to change Uganda’s near-complete ban on abortion. In 2006, the health ministry expanded abortion access to survivors of rape and incest. But its guidelines were quickly recalled following a backlash from religious leaders. The health ministry is staffed by experts that are unable to make their own decisions because “the powers that be are accountable to the church”, says Kampala-based human rights lawyer Joy Asasira.
She also points other examples of foreign religious conservative activists visiting the country. For instance, she says that US and Spanish organisations met with Ugandan MPs who then established a ‘pro-life’ parliamentary caucus in 2018.
The US government has itself funded abstinence-only programmes in Uganda since at least the early 2000s, which the international NGO Human Rights Watch says "are jeopardising Uganda’s successful fight against HIV/Aids".
At the Ministry of Health, Sabiiti said “the time has come” for legal change to enable more women and girls to access legal and safe abortions. But to achieve that change, Asasira says Uganda needs greater “separation between church and state”, so that its professionals and politicians can act in the interests of the population and not feel the need to be “in good standing with religious leaders”.
[link url="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/top-ugandan-health-official-condemns-us-linked-crisis-centres-for-opposing-contraception-for-pregnant-teens/"]Open Democracy report[/link]
See also
[link url="https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/us-funded-anti-abortionists-violating-sa-laws-health-dept/"]US-funded anti-abortionists ‘violating SA laws’ — Health Dept[/link]