REPRODUCTION HEALTH AND JUSTICE IN VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES OF UGANDA

REPRODUCTION HEALTH AND JUSTICE IN VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES OF UGANDA

Vulnerable women experience poverty and high rates of pregnancy due to a limited sex education and contraception. Vulnerable women from low-income households are more likely to turn to risky abortion providers and as a result, they are more likely to be hospitalized for complications related to the procedure than higher-income women are. Young, low-income, rural and non-privileged vulnerable women experience the greatest hurdles in their efforts to obtain an abortion in many parts of the Uganda.

Obstacles to obtaining an abortion in the Uganda include; abortions being made illegal by state laws, religion and traditional culture, lack of Medicaid coverage for abortions (except in the case of certain circumstances such as life endangerment) and conscience clauses allowing medical professionals to refuse to provide vulnerable women with abortions, related information, or proper referrals. Additional obstacles to abortion access include; lack of safety for providers and patients at abortion clinics, anti-abortion political legislators and conservative citizens that support them, and a lack of qualified abortion specialists, especially in the rural communities of Uganda.

Kayden Foundation through its counterparts, are running sensitization campaigns throughout the communities to ensure that the spread of the safe abortion message does not harm those who have already fallen victims but helps them. Kayden Foundation Uganda intends to restore hope and pride to vulnerable young women and girls who have already lost school by telling them that one can still continue with their studies even after they have suffered their ordeals.

Kayden Foundation Uganda advocates for reproductive justice in order to aid the vulnerable women in our impoverished communities obtain the sex and reproduction health services they need to live a healthier and better life.

 

Sex education

Throughout the world, many people lack a quality understanding of sex education. Health Organizations should provide sex education including information and easy access services that can be used. This should include knowledge of choice about partners, choice about the timing, possible marriage, and knowledge of consent. According to The Pro-Choice Public Education Project, the US provides more funding towards abstinence-only sex education programs rather than comprehensive sex education programs. From 1996 through 2007, the US Congress committed over $1.5 billion to abstinence-only programs. When funding is not provided towards comprehensive sex education, students are not taught about how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases from occurring. Advocates for Youth discuss how abstinence-only education programs are not effective at delaying the initiation of sexual activity or reducing teen pregnancy. Instead, graduates of abstinence-only programs are more prone to engage in sexual activities without knowledge of how to prevent pregnancy and disease transmission. Reproductive justice calls for comprehensive sex education to be available to all young people.

 

Birth control

Reproductive justice helps promote every individual’s right to be informed about all birth control options and to have access to choosing whether to use birth control and what method to use. This includes advocacy against programs that push vulnerable women to use LARCs. By providing vulnerable women with knowledge about and access to contraception, the reproductive justice movement hopes to lower unwanted pregnancies and help people take control over their bodies.

 

Abortion access

Advocates for reproductive justice such as Planned Parenthood believe that all vulnerable women should be able to obtain a safe and affordable abortion if they desire one. Having safe, local, and affordable access to abortion services is a crucial part of ensuring high-quality healthcare for vulnerable women. Access to abortion services without restrictive barriers is believed to be a vital part of healthcare because “induced abortion is among the most common medical procedures.” These studies show that when access to abortion is prohibitive or difficult, abortions will inevitably be delayed and performing an abortion 12 weeks or longer into the pregnancy increases the risks to vulnerable women’s health and raises the cost of procedures. The American Medical Association echoes the importance of removing barriers to obtaining an early abortion since they increase the gestational age at which the induced pregnancy termination occurs, thereby also increasing the risk associated with the procedure.

Organizations that promote reproductive justice such as Kayden Foundation and Planned Parenthood aim to advocate for access to safe abortions at a low cost and without external pressure. They also advocate for decreasing the stigma and danger attached to receiving an abortion, eliminating parental notification for teens, training more physicians and clinics to provide safe abortions, and creating awareness about abortion.

 

Maternity care

It has been found that vulnerable women face substantial tribal disparities in birth outcomes. This is worst for women from undesirable tribes. While part of the issue is the prevalence of poverty and lack of healthcare access among vulnerable women, studies have found disparities across all economic classes. This is partially due to tribal bias in the healthcare system; studies have found medical personnel less likely to believe in certain people’s perceptions about their own pain, and many stories have surfaced of these vulnerable women experiencing medical neglect within hospitals and dying from pregnancy complications that could have been treated.

Reproductive justice advocates emphasize the need to correct these tribal disparities in maternal health through systemic change within health care systems, and they also particularly advocate for access to midwifery model care. Midwifery care has strong roots in the ancient traditions of the vulnerable communities and is usually administered by fellow women, rather than doctors. Midwifery practitioners treat the person as a whole person rather than an objectified body and also involves trained professionals such as midwives (who are medically trained to monitor and safeguard maternal and infant health and deliver babies), helpers (who provide emotional and practical support and advocacy to mothers during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum, but do not have any medical training), and lactation consultants (who train and support mothers with lactation). Midwifery model care has been shown to improve birth outcomes yet can only be accessible to wealthier people. Reproductive justice groups advocate for access to midwifery model care not only to correct tribal disparities in birth outcomes, but because they believe that every woman has the human right to give birth in any way she wishes, including a home birth or a midwifery model birth at a birthing clinic or hospital.

 

Sexual coercion

Reproductive justice also focuses on giving protection against sexual coercion, unwanted sexual advances that happens when a person is pressured, tricked, threatened or forced in a non-physical way, when it comes to marriage partners. Sexual coercion consists of: continuously asking for sexual favors until the desired answer is achieved, making a sexual partner think it is to late to change their mind, manipulation, threats that can jeopardize one’s safety based on sexual preference or orientation. Sexual coercion between domestic partners has become a bigger issue in the Uganda. Sexual coercion has become a national problem. Vulnerable Ugandan women are victimized at an alarmingly higher rate than their counterparts. “57% of African women experienced some form of sexual coercion by their domestic partners. This has been a known issue since The Civil Rights, which vulnerable women used this spotlight to fight for their rights over their bodies and fight against sexual misconduct.

 

Conclusion;

Kayden Foundation equips pregnant vulnerable women with vital information and skills which enable them cope with changes before and after birth. The message has helped many vulnerable young teenage pregnant girls to survive death even after they have given birth or aborted.