Open Letter to United Nations Leaders Re Making International Safe Abortion Day 28 September an Official UN… by CEHURD on Scribd

In the recent years, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) has become a critical concept in planning, implementation and tracking progress of implemented activities. Even internationally, donors and other partners have increasingly become interested in participatory M&E approaches not only as tools for ensuring value for money, but also as an assessment tool for evaluating impact of the projects and in setting priority areas for funding where impact has been realized.

The Safe Abortion Action Fund (SAAF) program set out to evaluate it’s 3^rd Round of funding that had been given to organizations in different countries. From these organizations, the most successful projects were to be evaluated to guide SAAF in choosing priority areas whilst structuring the 4^th Round of funding and as one of the 3^rd Round grantees, CEHURD was selected to evaluate its project titled, “Clarifying Uganda’s Legal and Policy Environment on Abortion”

After reviewing and compiling available literature on the project, the consultants set out to interact with the different partners that have in one way or the other impacted or contributed to the project as it was implemented in joint control with national and local authorities: Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Manafwa district Health Office and District Police Office and professional actors: Legal Support Network (LSN), Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Uganda (AOGU), civil society networks: Coalition to Stop Maternal Mortality from Unsafe Abortion (CSMMUA), Community Health Advocates in Buikwe and School health clubs in Manafwa, etc.

From the evaluation, it came out strongly that there is a significant divergence in what is considered monitoring and evaluation and what monitoring and evaluation actually is; especially when it comes to the impact of the work CEHURD has done in the communities. It also came to our attention that the community and different stakeholders view CEHURD as an authority on health and human rights and in litigating health rights in Uganda – in relation to the cases before court on health rights. In another community where health clubs were established in schools, the clubs grew to hold weekly debates on prevention of unintended pregnancy and as a result, there had been a 50% reduction in teenage pregnancies in the school and this was a result of an initiative we championed.

This evidence challenged us to revisit M&E, not from the perspective we have understood it- in terms of realizing indicators and objectives, but rather assessing the change created as a result of the initiatives established.   There has been undoubted growth in appreciation of M&E as an institution, and the only question is, are we missing the point of M&E in tracking change realized as a result of the programs implemented or can we use it to do more? There is need for further exploration and appreciation of M&E can indeed support valuable cross learning from CEHURD and the local communities.

 

By Sumaya Labira

CEHURD, alongside many other CSOs, has taken initiative to identify what they consider to be key SRHR pressing issues affecting young people in Uganda. SRHR issues are very intimate and private in nature and this creates a thick dark cloud around them, making advocacy and dissemination of meaningful information hard to achieve.

Why Sexual and Reproductive rights?

In his introductory overview, Loic Whitmore, Regional Programme Manager-Rutgers, stressed that Reproductive health is not just a health issue – It is a human rights issue that is central to gender equality and ultimately to sustainable development. Sexual and reproductive health encompasses health and well-being matters related to right to choose one’s sexual relations, have children, pregnancy, including safe medical abortion and access to family planning.

SRHR issues are very intimate and private in nature and this creates a thick dark cloud around them, making advocacy and dissemination of meaningful information had to achieve. And, yet, we cannot afford to become silent.

SRHR and young people

Young people (ages 10-24) currently account for 52% of the total population in Uganda as of January 2016 and as young people reach puberty, they face new challenges related to their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Young people undergo transformations of body change and identity, some become sexually active, yet little has been done to prepare them navigate their emerging sexuality.Young people must be free to decide on sexuality and reproduction. And, the state has an obligation to respect, promote and protect SRHR.

Barriers to SRHR…

Participants identified barriers to effective advocacy for SRHR issues and how they could be overcome. One working group laid out unsafe abortion, teenage pregnancy, early child marriages, and inadequate resources to finance SRHR issues while another group came up with more holistic issues such as, shortage of trained healthcare professionals in SRHR areas, inadequate training institutions to train enough skilled professionals, culture of silence around SRHR issues, and lack of community engagement.

In response to the challenges above, there is need to advocate for increased communication on SRHR issues among men, women and young people; increased integration of SRHR programs and services to maximize resource utilization and synergy, increase in financial and human resources for SRHR, supply of SRHR commodities including a wide range of contraceptives, condoms among others and finally, monitor and evaluate access to youth-friendly SRHR information and services.

 

 

07.28.16 – (PRESS RELEASE) Due to the unclear abortion law in Uganda, women and adolescents continue seeking unsafe abortions and are vilified by their families and communities—even the doctors and health workers who provide legal post-abortion care are being arrested, according to a new report by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD).

“Facing Uganda’s Law on Abortion: Experiences from Women and Service Providers” is a sexual and reproductive health advocacy publication highlighting experiences and perspectives of individuals who have been affected by or dealt with abortion. The publication includes interviews with women and girls who ended pregnancies, as well as doctors, nurses, health worker, lawyers, police and community members.

Abortion in Uganda is legal in limited circumstances, yet approximately 85,000 women each year receive treatment for complications from unsafe abortion and an additional 65,000 women experience complications but do not seek medical treatment.

“Every woman and adolescent girl has a right to make informed decisions about their reproductive health,” said Onyema Afulukwe, senior legal advisor for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Uganda’s abortion law punishes women and girls who choose to end a pregnancy and criminalizes the health workers that offer them legal post-abortion care. This new report shows that now, more than ever, the Ugandan government must clarify its law and expand access to safe and legal abortion services.” 

 The Center for Reproductive Rights provided technical support for the CEHURD report, which addresses the current state of the abortion law in Uganda, the difficulties accessing lawful and safe abortion services, as well as enforcement of the abortion law by both the police and local communities.

Individuals stories highlighted in the report include among others:

• Nabukeera Sarah, a 15 year old who was drugged and raped by a health worker when seeking medical treatment, and had to turn to an illegal abortion,
• Kadaga Henry Francis, who was arrested and detained after providing a woman with post-abortion care who later died from unsafe abortion complications,
• Wasswa Alex, a local community leader who reported a rape survivor with intellectual disabilities to police after neighbors ganged up on the woman for ending the pregnancy

“These personal stories demonstrate how Uganda’s abortion law is working against the women and adolescents who need reproductive health services, and the health professionals who should be able to practice medicine without fear of incarceration,” said Moses Mulumba, executive director of CEHURD. “It’s time the government amend the abortion law and implement health policies to ensure women and girls can get the health services they need and deserve.”

The Center has worked extensively in Uganda on the human rights implications of lack of access to legal abortion and modern contraceptives. In November 2013, the Center, the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law released a joint report entitled The Stakes Are High: The Tragic Impact of Unsafe Abortion and Inadequate Access to Contraception in Uganda. The report documents personal stories of women impacted by the widespread and false impression that abortion is illegal in all circumstances in Uganda— when in fact it is permitted for women with life-threatening conditions and victims of sexual assault.

In 2012, the Center launched its first research report on Uganda’s laws and policies on termination of pregnancy. The report found that the laws and policies are more expansive than most believe, and Uganda has ample opportunity to increase access to safe abortion services.

 

 

PRESS CONTACTS:

Natalia Garzon, Senior Press Officer, Center for Reproductive Rights

Mobile: 00 1 917 257 9793 / Skype: Garzon_crr / Email: ngarzon@reprorights.org

Maxie Ayebare, Communications Officer, Center for Health Human Rights and Development

Mobile: +256 791 845559 / Skype: maxie.ayebare /Email: ayebare@cehurd.org

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

Kampala, Uganda

Today the Center for health human rights and Development filed a complaint jointly with Dr. Diana Stella Nasike with the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC) to challenge the poor working environments and conditions in which many of our health workers are subjected to.

Prior to November 6^th 2015, Dr. Diana Stella Nasike had raised concerns with the human resource department at the International Medical Centre Clinic in Kololo where she works in a poorly ventilated room where she had to attend to patients. This is Consultation Room 2 at the International Medical Center (IMC), Upper Kololo Terrace which has no window but just a small hatch sized opening. Dr. Diana works a 12 hour day shift and at least 180 hours a week! Her patients’ are mostly people with respiratory infections, coughs and colds. Being the health worker, she notified the administration and management of IMC that poor ventilation was a risk to her health as patients cough in her face from time to time. Indeed a few months later she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to continue work while undergoing treatment. As though that’s not enough, the treatment room at IMC Kololo provides no privacy at all for patients who are being attended to. Anyone can walk in, watch and or listen in while a health worker is attending to a patient.

The management of IMC Clinics –an affiliation of the International Medical Group has however made no effort to rectify the situation even after several letters from CEHURD were written to their office to desist from abusing their employees’ rights to work in a clean and healthy environment.

“TO DO NO HARM- that is a clause in the Hippocrates’ Oath that we take as doctors. That is a vital clause that should govern both our personal and institutional medical practice. A medical doctor or medical institution that does not uphold this becomes a danger to themselves and to the very people they serve.”Dr. Diana Stella Nasike notes in her statement to the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioner’s Council.

All Ugandans have rights to privacy of information –this is re-echoed in our 1995 Constitution, the Ministry of Health Patients Charter, the Medical Code of Professional Ethics and a guaranteed right to a clean and healthy environment.  Uganda’s parliament has guaranteed that occupational health and safety is underscored in our domestic laws through enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, of 2006. IMC’s deliberate disregard to employees’ rights and patients’ rights to privacy while they access services in their facilities is in utter violation of these obligations.

“It is our appeal to the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Council to suspend all health services to patients at the International Medical Centre located on Plot 51A, Upper Kololo Terrace until these complaints are addressed by the management of IMC. All employers ought to understand that it is a constitutional obligation for all persons, health facilities, and government, to respect, uphold and promote human rights of individuals including patients and health workers in private practice.” notes Ms. Primah Kwagala –Program Manager Strategic Litigation at the Centre for Health, Human Rights & Development (CEHURD).

For details please contact: Info@cehurd.org.

kwagala@cehurd.org

or zeere@cehurd.org

or call +256414532283

Download the full  press release .