Senegal: A 10 year old Senegalese girl who became pregnant with twins after being raped by a neighbour is being forced to continue with her pregnancy, thanks to her country’s stringent restrictions on abortion, news reports said.
Human rights advocates have been trying to pressure the government to allow the girl to seek abortion care, but they’ve been unsuccessful so far, news website think progress wrote.“She is going to have to go through with the pregnancy. The best we can do is keep up pressure on the authorities to ensure the girl gets regular scans and free medical care,” Fatou Kiné Camara, the president of the Senegalese women lawyers’ association, was quoted as saying to UK daily Guardian.
Ms Camara explained that under Senegal’s current abortion law, which is one of the harshest among African nations, requires three doctors to certify that a woman will die immediately unless she ends her pregnancy. But poor women in the country are hardly ever able to visit a doctor, let alone three in quick succession.
The country’s abortion ban is based on an archaic penal code that dates back to 1810.The UN committee on economic, social and cultural rights has expressed concern about the draconian law, pointing out that it’s leading to a particularly high rates of illegal abortions and maternal deaths.Doctors who perform abortions, and women who seek them, can be thrown in jail for years.Hundreds of women die from unsafe abortion procedures in Senegal every year.
