Reproductive Health and Rights Challenges in Nigeria

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The law in Nigeria only allows abortion in the case of a woman’s life being in danger. Studies in Nigeria have shown that this restrictive law actually increases rates of abortion rather than lowering them. Hauwa Shekarau, country director with Ipas Nigeria, talks to us about the current and major task of working to reduce maternal deaths due to unsafe abortions, reduce complications from unsafe abortions, and enable women to have access to quality reproductive healthcare in Nigeria.

Nigeria has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world due to unsafe abortions. Gender-based violence and sexual violence occurs in high rates in Nigeria as well, which can often lead to unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. Studies have shown that women with unwanted pregnancies go to extreme extents to end that pregnancy, regardless of the law or safety concerns.

Providing women with access to contraceptives can reduce these unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and deaths. Rates of contraceptive use can vary across Nigeria, but in some rural parts of the country, contraceptive use rates can be as low as 6%. Women in Nigeria don’t use contraceptives for a variety of reasons, including lack of access, the perpetuation of myths and stigma, cultural norms, and male judgement and disapproval.

Because of cultural norms and values, sex education in Nigerian schools is frowned upon. This leaves young Nigerians on their own in terms of learning about anatomy, healthy relationships, consent, sexual and gender identity, and more. Conflict also impacts sexual and reproductive healthcare throughout Nigeria. The Boko Haram insurgency exacerbates gender-based and sexual violence as well as the inability to access SRHR services.

The U.S.’ global gag rule is severely harming Nigerian women. Since the U.S. is now restricting one of the largest channels of funding for sexual and reproductive health that Nigeria has access to, it is majorly affecting women’s ability to access safe and quality abortion care. The expanded global gag rule is very far reaching, and impacts other health programming for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. This means fewer organizations are now participating in advocacy and abortion care.

With low rates of contraception use and high rates of unsafe abortion, gender-based violence, poverty, conflict, and maternal deaths, Ipas is working to ameliorate some of these sexual and reproductive health shortcomings.

Links from this episode

Ipas
Ipas on Facebook
Ipas on Twitter
Abortion in Nigeria Information
Global HER Act in the House and Senate

Transcript

Jennie Wetter: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back a podcast on all things repro. I'm your host Jenny Wetter. In each episode, I'll be taking you to the front lines of the escalating fight over our sexual and reproductive health and rights at home and abroad. Each episode, I will be speaking with leaders who are fighting to protect our reproductive health and rights to ensure that no one's reproductive health depends on where they live. It's time for repros to fight back.

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Jennie Wetter: Hi everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of rePROs Fight Back. I'm really excited about today's conversation. We have in studio a wonderful advocate from Nigeria to talk to us about reproductive health and rights in Nigeria. So without further ado, joining me today, we have the Hauwa Shekarau with Ipas Nigeria and she is the country director with, uh, Ipas Nigeria. Hauwa thank you so much for being here today.

Hauwa Shekarau: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Jennie Wetter: Um, so first, why don't you tell us a little bit about why you're in DC right now?

Hauwa Shekarau: Um, I got invited, uh, to participate in an event organized by Population Connection, uh, with respect to the global gag rule. And the, this is based on the fact that we had, uh, done some work on the impact of global gag rule in Nigeria and Population Connection, uh, supported us in doing that project. And wanted me to come share you know, uh, results or lessons learned from that project.

Jennie Wetter: Oh, great. So we'll get to that a little later, but it was good to hear why you're here.

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah, yeah. And of course I have other things also lined up, you know, to do a while in DC.

Jennie Wetter: Good. Well, I hope you get a chance to enjoy the city a little bit as well. It's a nice time of year. Hauwa Shekarau: I love, I love the a, the weather is not as harsh as I thought.

Jennie Wetter: Yes. It's a nice time right now and yeah. Um, so why don't you tell me a little bit about Ipas, um, the work Ipas Nigeria is doing.

Hauwa Shekarau: Okay. Um, Ipas in Nigeria is, and, uh, globally actually, uh, is working towards reducing maternal deaths, uh, from unsafe abortion. Uh, in fact, our goal is to have zero, uh, you know, unsafe abortions. Uh, you know, in the world, uh, from the, at the moment we, there are about, uh, 22 million abortions happening globally and we're working to show that we completely reduce that and yeah.

Jennie Wetter: So 22 million on unsafe?

Hauwa Shekarau: Unsafe, unsafe abortions. Yeah. And so in Nigeria, uh, we work within the limits of the law, uh, to ensure that women do not die from unsafe abortion, reduce the complications of, um, unsafe abortion, and also enable women to have access to quality reproductive health choices. Uh, the law in Nigeria is very restrictive. It only allows abortion where the life of the woman is in danger. And so even though the law is supposed to, uh, you know, uh, you know, reduce incidences of abortion, unfortunately that is not the case. Um, studies that have been conducted in Nigeria have shown that the law is not really, uh, reducing the incident rather in a abortions are increasing. On a daily basis. Yeah. Uh, in 2012, a study conducted by Guttemacher Institute with the University of Ibadan showed that there were 1.25 million abortions taking place yearly. And then recently PMA 2020 conducted a study and they also found that it has actually gone up to about 1.85 million, you know, so the reality is that the law is not stopping women from having abortions. Rather what it has done is push clandestine abortions, you know, and that is the problem because you know, quarks are having a field day, you know, and this is because when a woman gets pregnant and she doesn't want that pregnancy, probably based on the circumstances of, you know, that pregnancy, she, most women would want to keep that pregnancy. A few with counseling might decide, okay, I'll, I'll keep it. But most would insist that they terminate that pregnancy, as soon as the law is restrictive, they cannot go to any health care facility and get the service. And so they have to get the resort to, um, quarks and sometimes unwholesome, you know, practices in order to terminate that pregnancy.

Hauwa Shekarau: In fact, in Nigeria, women and girls sometimes use bicycle spokes to pierce their, uh, you know, vagina right into the reproductive track. You know, that to, you know, terminate that pregnancy. And most times when that happens, they begin to bleed and left unattended to they become infected. And some of them don't live to tell their stories. Some of them die as a result. And so, um, that has continually increased the number of, uh, uh, maternal deaths from unsafe abortion. And I think, I think it's important to also note that Nigeria has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world and unsafe abortion is the high contributor to that maternal mortality. You know, so this has some of the, um, issues that Ipas in Nigeria has been working on, uh, ensuring that, um, uh, women do not die from these complications.

Hauwa Shekarau: Uh, in reality, the work that we do is what I call acting after the facts. Right. You know, it's, it's, it's like, um, it's a tap is running and we are mopping the water running from that tap and as long as that tap remains running, we will continue to mop, will not finish mopping, you know. And so that is a situation of the kind of work that we're doing doing post abortion care, you know, because the law does not allow for uh, you know, um, women to have access to abortion. Yeah.

Jennie Wetter: Yeah. I feel like that is something you see everywhere is people seem to think that they can outlaw abortion and it will stop abortion, but all it does is make it unsafe and put women's lives in danger.

Hauwa Shekarau: Absolutely. The law. You know, even not just in Nigeria, in other countries where you have restrictive abortion laws, the, I mean, evidence has shown that it doesn't, uh, stop abortions. Rather they are abortions continue to happen on a daily basis. And you know, uh, women resort to very unwholesome practices in order to terminate those pregnancies. And I think that is really, really unfortunate. What it means is our government is not responding to the yearnings of her, a female citizens. And the reality also is that there's also gender based violence on the increase in Nigeria. Almost on a daily basis, you read in the pages of papers on social media of you know, sexual violence, metted out against girls and women. You know, and definitely when such happens there's the possibility of getting pregnant happens. Once a woman is pregnant, if she doesn't want that pregnancy, she will go to any length to terminate that pregnancy. In fact, at Ipas in Nigeria, we conducted a study some years ago about over a decade ago and we tried to show, we'll have our way and we went around interviewing women and the results came out that once a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, she will do anything. She doesn't even think about the, she does able remember there's a law that stops me from doing this.

Jennie Wetter: She's thinking about what's best for her and her family. Yeah.

Hauwa Shekarau: You know, so that is the the very unfortunate situation we find ourselves in Nigeria and we are walking to a show that we are vast, you know, maternal deaths from unsafe abortion. And one of the very important, uh, you know, aspect of our work also is to also provide women with contraceptive care. Uh, because yes, uh, women also need to know how to control their fertility, uh, through the use of contraceptives, uh, commodities and all that, you know, however, uh, if you look at the statistics in Nigeria, uh, contraceptive prevalence rate is very low, right? We have, uh, today in the country the average is about a 15%. And in other part, in different parts of the country, the, the, the rate varies. And the northern part of Nigeria is as low as 6% for, for women of reproductive bearing age, you know, that is extremely, very low and no wonder that we have such a bulgering , you know, population, right? Nigeria, our population at the moment is estimated to be close to about 200 million people. And poverty is very, very prevalent. Close to 70% of the population live below $1 per day. You know, so it's, you know, there are just so many things that are just not working well.

Jennie Wetter: So clearly interrelated. If you can't, don't have access to contraception or you're not using contraception, you can't plan how many kids you're going to have. You can be, it's hard to work or go to school.

Hauwa Shekarau: Yes, absolutely.

Jennie Wetter: And those are things that affect poverty. So, yeah, I mean it's all very connected.

Hauwa Shekarau: And you know, uh, like there's a saying that poverty wears the face of a woman and that is the reality in Nigeria. The very poor are women. Some of them don't even have opportunity to go to school. Right. You know, so it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's really a very, um, you know, uh, you know, difficult situation and, uh, international organizations, I know that locally, uh, organizations, uh, nongovernmental organizations are working in, uh, to, to help, you know, ameliorate some of the difficulties that we face in the, in the country.

Jennie Wetter: So what would you say are some of the main reasons for the low contraceptive prevalence rate? Is it, there is a lack of access? Is it, there's myths around it? You hear that in some places or male disapproval or?

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah, I think there are, you know, you know, various reasons. You know, you have just mentioned most of them, one of it is a lack of access because there is a high unmet need of, uh, of contraceptives. And then there's also a lot of myths surrounding, you know, contraception, uh, contraceptives. One of it is, um, you know, people believe that a, um, it's abortion, right? You hear that people have, who are a faith based groups would say contraceptives is abortion and they are against abortion. So they don't use it. And then you also have the misconception about, uh, the, the, uh, contraceptives leading to permanent, uh, infertility and all that, you know, so there are laws and there's also male approval, male disapproval. I mean, you know, so that is also another factor. And so a lot of, uh, misconceptions, uh, cultural, uh, you know, uh, norms that, uh, against the use of, uh, contraceptives.

Jennie Wetter: Um, so we talked about a number of reproductive health issues facing Nigeria. Did we miss any that are facing Nigerian women?

Hauwa Shekarau: Gender based violence? Yes, very, very important. And this is, this is happening on a daily basis across the length and breadth of the country. Yeah.

Jennie Wetter: Well then, you know, you look at it worldwide, it's one in three women are going to face that in their lifetime. And yeah, that's a worldwide issue that definitely needs to be addressed.

Hauwa Shekarau: You know, the, the issue is that, uh, perpetrators, most perpetrators of a gender based violence, are not really strangers. They usually intimate partners. Yeah. Some of them are members of the family, some of them are even, uh, people that you would expect, ah, commit should be committed to taking good care of this women and girls. Yeah. You know, so and that is where the problem, uh, you know, ease. And, uh, the reality also is that there isn't sufficient political will to deal with this issue. In some cases. When you, in Nigeria for instance, when you go to the police, even though I would admit that the police is has improved and they are doing a better than they used to be, you know, but we still have some places where we, men who first of all after overcoming the culture of silence, that that a barrier for fear of stigma and all thatand they come up, come out to uh, reports, you know, such incidents.They either are not believed or, um, the, the, the, the law enforcement agents do not take it serious. Yeah. And then there's also this cultural, cultural norm, especially where the perpetrator of the violence is a, is an intimate partner. Either husband or partner. Well also when the woman keeps complaining, uh, she's told, uh, within the family to say, you know what you need to enjoy. It's, you need to enjoy it eitherfor the sake of the children or for the fact that you don't want the wall to see that you, you're marriage failedor things like that. Yeah. So most times we may continue to suffer in silence. They continue to endure, you know, that violence sometimes before, you know, it, I mean it's, they're dead bodies that show how bad, you know, that has been.

Jennie Wetter: Absolutely, I feel like that's kind of a universal story. Something you still hear in the US you know, it's so hard to leave and if you do, it's the most dangerous time and you end up with, you know, the woman being killed or um, you know, people saying, you know, stay or not leaving, how bad it is. Um, it's just so tragic. And yet again, such a, so many women are facing it and, um, it's not taken as seriously as it needs to.

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah. And you know, there's something that has, that is now a kind of a, the Sh, um, coming outs. You know, some of these women who continue to endure the violence and remain bottled up, it gets to a point the, they then revolt. And this has led to some husbands been killed because of either bottled up, you know, uh, tension and, um, uh, emotions from, uh, the woman. And at the end of the day that people don't understand why did she kill her husband? Right. You know, she has been complaining of abuse, sexual violence and domestic violence and everybody said, you know, you know, just enjoy it. Just keep quiet, you know, and then it gets to the point she cannot take it anymore and then she fights back and usually fighting back could be fatal.

Jennie Wetter: Um, so one thing we haven't talked about, um, are there any particular challenges around young people and young people accessing reproductive health care?

Hauwa Shekarau: Yes, absolutely. Um, that is also one of the, uh, major reproductive health problems that we have, uh, because of the cultural norms and values. Uh, Sexuality Education for instance in school is frowned at. Parents and faith groups, uh, have risen up to condemn sexuality education in the schools, uh, cut into them. Their children have been taught how to have sex and all that. But the reality is that the world is evolving, the world is not static, the world is dynamic. Things are changing, particularly in this, you know, Internet age, right. That we're in, you know, so if you think, you know, uh, you know, your child is not, it should not be taught anything in school reform, right?

Jennie Wetter: They're going to learn it somewhere.

Hauwa Shekarau: You cannot control the loads of information that children or young people have access to. And you cannot control where or how they get this actual for this information is, you know, so in actual fact, by fighting comprehensive sexuality education, we're actually shooting ourselves in the foot, you know, because at least when you allow comprehensive sexuality education, then you know that your wards or your children are being taught age appropriate, comprehensive sexuality education. And that is very, very important, you know? And so, you know, because family, the family, the government is not too comfortable with that. That has left the young people almost on their own. And the social media age has therefore enabled them to go on euphoria of their own without any guidance, without any, you know, somebody to really guide and let them know what is right and what is, um, what is wrong, you know? So this has really affected, uh, the young people and many of them are victims of sexual violence. Many of them are victims of unwanted pregnancies and so on and so forth. And because also of the social norm, whenever they go to the hospital, it's so difficult for them to have access to contraceptive services, you know, because the attitude of workers is not also welcoming to the young adolescents. They, for instance, they might go there and they say, what are you doing here? Are you married? Right? Do you need a family planning? You know, as well. It's... If I had the, the, the, the one of these studies we conducted at Ipasabout the reproductive health seeking behavior of young people, they don't go to hospitals. Most of the time they patronize some of these, uh, uh, medicine vendors for some of their, uh, reproductive health needs. And this Peyton medicine vendors are mostly on trained, uh, people who stock, um, drugs and, and chemicals and all that instead of, uh, helping the situation. Some of them are actually doing more harm. Right. You know, and so that is a lot of, uh, the, the, the, the adolescence. And so one of the things that we do at Ipas is making sure we engender, youth programming in the work that we do. Uh, we walk through youth groups such as the Nigeria Medical Students Association. We also work with youth led organizations both at the grassroots level and also within the community in urban areas as well. You know, that to get information to the young people. Through these, um, through these groups. But definitely it's so very important that the young people are carried along. And, um, we also carry out advocacy also to the government, uh, making them understand the importance of not leaving the young people behind because they are the future. And if you do not carry them along and, uh, you know, give them the necessary information. The truth is we are already harming their future.

Jennie Wetter: And its so important changing policy. But also you touched on this a little bit, making sure to be working with providers so that, um, young people aren't getting stigmatized care if they go see care that they're able to access the services they need and not shamed for them.

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah, that's right. Um, very, very important that, um, people are giving non directional counseling counseling is very important. One of the things we have discovered is that because of the, um, the huge population and then the few number of qualified trained personnel, the, they, they did hardly give enough time for counseling. And counseling is as important as the, uh, the, the care that you provide, you know, and, uh, it's, it's really a big, uh, big, uh, challenge. Uh, we have a serious case of brain, a brain drain, a lot of a medical person. As soon as they qualified, they already wanting to leave the shores of the country. And so what we have left, uh, very few professionals who are, uh, you know, uh, providing service. And also one of the major reason for that is also poor remuneration. They're not well remunerated. And, uh, of course for the, the, the professional who has been trained, I know that is seeking for better remuneration. I saw the, they, they leave the shoresof the country, but it's, it's indeed a very big, you won't believe that in Nigeria there are some health care facilities in the, uh, in the grassroots communities in very, very remote areas that do not have a single trained medical doctor. So most of the time it is mid level providers that provide services in such a communities. And that is why the government has taken it very serious, uh, to engender the tax shifting policy that enables middle level and low level, um, healthcare workers to be able to handle some, you know, services, which in the past was, uh, reserved for, you know, uh, senior cater. Yeah.

Jennie Wetter: Um, so one thing we haven't touched on yet also is the role that conflict is playing in reproductive health in Nigeria. Yeah.

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah. You know, um, Nigeria has been in the news for the last five years. Um, with the, the security challenge that has been occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency, you things have, uh, well in the end, things have improved in the sense that, uh, we used to have that fear in even all urban cities like the federal capital territory and other northern cities. But at the moment things are a bit, uh, limited to the, north eastern part of Nigeria and particularly two states, Borno and part of a Adamawa state. But then there are also other issues aside from the Boko Haram insurgency. You have the, uh, the headers, terror, I would say, you know, uh, against, uh, the farmers in the north central parts of [inaudible] or the parts of Nigeria, you know, so truly, uh, the conflict situation has exacerbated the situation of things in the country. And we have also, that is another reason that has led to increase gender based violence because most of the time the, the women and girls are victims, right? Uh, there's a lot of kidnappings also going on kidnapping for ransom. Uh, in the case of, uh, you know, women and girls being kidnapped, they are subjected to, uh, uh, rape, gang raping and all that, you know, so that has also, you know, created a great challenge in the area of reproductive health.

Jennie Wetter: So we've talked a little bit as we've gone along and what the government of Nigeria is doing to address reproductive health. Um, do you maybe want to touch on that a little bit?

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah, I think, uh, the, the government has a also doing their best, but I think there's much more to be done. There's room for improvement. Uh, first and foremost, the, uh, funding made available for the health sector is not as, it should be as recommended by the World Health Organization. You know, so I, I would, uh, expect that the government should live up to their commitment to to meet that minimum budgetary requirement that has been placed by the World Health Organization for all health ministries. And I think once that is done, then we're going to see a lot because I mean, there is no, nobody is as wealthy as the government. I mean the government has the resources, you know, however, we have international organizations that are also stepping in through foreign aid to support some of these health challenges that we have in Nigeria. Of course there's a lots of be done and uh, the government really needs to step up. They need to prioritize the area of health, uh, with a particular focus on women's reproductive health. And I think for me, one other problem that I see is the lack of gender based budgeting. And I think the government needs to do a lot more of that, you know, because to budgets blindly without having a, a, you know, a recourse to the fact that Oh, we have so, so number of women who saw number of a reproductive age bearing a women and then we have, uh, so, so number of menopausal women, you know, working with statistics and then budgeting based on that would be more productive rather than just blindly budgeting. Because at the end of the day, you miss the point when a women have a reproductive bearing age go to the hospitals and services that they require are not there simply because they were not budgeted for.

Jennie Wetter: And I'm sure Ipas Nigeria is working to fix that.

Hauwa Shekarau: Well, um, like I said, our major focus is on reducing maternal deaths from unsafe abortion as well as the, you know, providing women with contraceptive care. That is our niche, the niche that we have found for ourselves. You know, however, we're working closely through partnerships and collaborations, other organizations that have focused on other areas. Uh, we belong to the national reproductive health technical working group that was set up by the ministry of Health. And together we are looking at the issues of women's health at a holistic level. So yeah, one way or the other, we are contributing towards finding the solution.

Jennie Wetter: Great. Now we're going to go kind of back to the beginning, which is the reason for your trip here. So how is US policy affecting reproductive health providers in Nigeria?

Hauwa Shekarau: Um, I'm sure we're talking about the global gag rule. Yeah. The, the global gag grew is harming the Nigerian women. I want to limit myself to Nigeria, but I can assure you it affects also Africa because they said out of a four out of four Africans, you see one is a Nigerian, you know, we have the most populous, uh, African, uh, nation in, in, in Nigeria. And so, uh, the role of the US government is large because so many reproductive health, uh, organizations receive us funding and must abide by the rules of the US. The US government is like the big brother. Yeah. That was, see, you know, and so the funding that comes through the u s government is huge. And so if the US government provides one of the largest fundings that we have with this restriction with the Mexico City restriction on use of, you know, US funding to provide abortion related care counseling services and all it then tells you that it is really, really affecting women's ability to access quality, um, abortion care in Nigeria.

Hauwa Shekarau: And the reality of the global gag rule that was introduced by the Trump administration is even more far reaching than the previous, you know, because uh, what the glo, what, uh, the Trump global gag rule has done is that aside from not using US funding to provide abortion care and services, it also stops organizations that received such funding from using their own, you know, resources to provide, uh, you know, abortion care and services. This is very, very far reaching. And apart from that it has, it has also implication on other health programming such as malaria, tuberculosis and what have you. And so a, the space for civil society is shrinking because of the, the, the global gag fear. Fewer organizations are participating in advocacy space. At Ipas, we are a small, not really everywhere. It's a small organization. In Nigeria for instance, I have a staff strength about 21, and then we're talking about a country of almost 200 million people. So we've been able to, in the past we've been able to walk and have a father reach with true collaborating with other organizations and NGOs that are working in different parts of the country. Now by reason of this global gag rule, some of these organizations that we used to work with can no longer work with us. And what it means is that it is reducing, you know, our rich.Aand, uh, clinic, some clinics have closed as organizations have lost us funding. A very good example is MSI. MSI has presence in almost every part of the country now because of the global gag rule, they have had to lose funding. You know, and definitely this has affected some of their, uh, their service provision in the parts of the country. Of course, there are so many other organizations that, um, I, I do not need to mention here, but definitely it is, uh, affecting, uh, Nigeria.

Hauwa Shekarau: There's also what we have noticed with the, with the grants we had from Population Connection to do this, um, uh, project on the global gag rule. We realize that some of the local NGOs that are getting either sub grants or small grants from some of the bigger NGOs were really not very aware about this global gag rule. There's a lot of confusion. Uh, NGOs have signed contracts with the US government without them knowing that there is a rule that stops them from using even their own funds to do abortion work. So not much is being said about it. They're not being informed, they're not been educated. They just blindly, uh, you know, sign and it's after that has happened that they come to the realization that, oh, we're not supposed to do this. Right. Yeah. In general, the US policy is out of step with Africa on the issue of, um, uh, abortion. For instance, we have the Maputo protocol, which is the African Union Protocol on the rights of women in Africa. In article of that protocol, it makes provision for women who have, uh, become, uh, pregnant as a result of rape, incest and other, you know, uh, health, uh, challenges to be given access to medical abortion. You know, that too. Uh, you know, sought out a, you know, such issues. And so the US policy is completely at variance with the provision of that African, uh, uh, Maputo protocol, you know, and so you ask yourself, you know, the governments, US government is making this difficult with the Helms Amendment and Global Gag rule and definitely at cross purposes what, what the African, uh, union, you know, have agreed within their state parties.

Hauwa Shekarau: Also, abortion is treated as something I select her from other reproductive health care services. Abortion is very common.Abortion is a healthcare issue. US policy stigmatizes abortion. And then for me, I see that, uh, the, the, the, the US government seems to make poly, uh, you know, play politics with the women's lives. African women's lives. I mean, in America here, if any of the women gets pregnant and she wants to abort that pregnancy, she has access to quality care. So why stop other women. Does it mean that the lives of African women is not what saving? That is the, the, the, the, the, the, the challenge that I see here.

Jennie Wetter: Absolutely. Yeah. And so again, maternal mortality, right? Like it all comes together.

Hauwa Shekarau: Yeah, absolutely. Because you cannot divorce, you know, the contribution of unsafe abortion to maternal mortality. And even we are saying that women's lives matter and that women's lives need to be saved, then we must stop playing politics with the lives of African women. Our lives matter. Our lives matter. And uh, what is good for the goose is good for the gander . I know. So, and that is my own position in this regard.

Jennie Wetter: So you were here, you did, you talked a little bit to Congress. So what would you say to u s lawmakers about US foreign policy around global gag rule?

Hauwa Shekarau: Well, Nigeria is facing a huge problem of unsafe abortion, which is something you don't face here in the US. Advocates and government in Nigeria are trying to address, you know, the problem as we know how by making abortion safe and legal, but the US government is interfering. Women are dying from preventable causes and we know how to solve the problem. But the US is making it difficult, you know. So I would really want to call on a the US law makers to repeal this global gag rule. There is need to repeal that law. You know, because if we say that women's lives matter then we need to do something about this global gag rule. It is so, so, so very important because women are the women are actually society. They are the heartbeats of the society. And then so we need to ensure that the women have, you know, a way to go about their lives and have a right to make their reproductive health choices without any coercion, without any, any fear or in, intimidation. I think this is very, very, uh, clear. You know, sometimes the beats me why we have to keep making laws about women's bodies.

Jennie Wetter: I agree.

Hauwa Shekarau: Why is that? So the men are free to go about doing what they want, but when it comes to women from ages, past till dates, even in this 21st century that we are in, we are still trying to determine how we may use their bodies.

Jennie Wetter: Like women's health care is seen as like this separate thing and not just health care.

Hauwa Shekarau: They are not, yeah, he's not seen as health care. And this is, this is definitely not acceptable. And I therefore want to urge the lawmakers. You know, I really admire the US lawmakers, you know, because I have seen instances where they have risen to the occasion to do what is right. And I believe and I trust that they will do what is right by repealing this global gag rule, irrespective of their party leanings.

Jennie Wetter: If you want to make sure that we end the global gag rule as Hauwa was suggesting make sure to write your law makers, uh, re Congress and tell them to support the, um, Global Her act. That is what this act would do. It would legislatively overturn the global gag rule and it's really important that we pass it and we'll make sure to include links in the show notes that you can access to tell your legislators to support the global her act in both the house and the Senate. Hauwa thank you.

Hauwa Shekarau: And I think that, uh, we all have a role to play. Every citizen has a role to play and it would be nice for every citizen to be counted on this very important work.

Jennie Wetter: Yes, Hauwa about thank you so much for being here. It was wonderful talking to you.

Hauwa Shekarau: Thank you very much, Jennie. I'm glad you are able to accommodate me on this show today.

Jennie Wetter: For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at rePROs Fight Back. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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