Abortion in Senegal
After concerns about unsafe abortion as a public health crisis in the 1990s, Senegal ratified the International Conference on Population and Development and the Maputo Protocol.
In 2013, a group of NGOs called the Task Force formed with the goal of aligning Senegal's abortion law with the Maputo Protocol.
Domestically, religious families and organizations influence widespread opposition to abortion due to Islamic beliefs.
PAC providers sometimes report clients to legal authorities, but most maintain patient confidentiality by implicitly labeling abortions as miscarriages.
Association of Senegalese Women Lawyers, AJS) found that 58% of people in the country opposed medical abortion.
[2] Its spokesman, Mame Mactar Guèye, has said pro-abortion activists are controlled by Western donors against African values.
[3][2] Jamra and its allies have argued that Senegal has always supported abortion only if it threatens life, but feminists shift the discussion toward legalization.
[12] In 2004, Senegal was one of the first ratifiers of the Maputo Protocol, which provides a right to abortion in the cases of rape, incest, or danger to the health of the mother or fetus.
In 2014, the government formed a group of activists, lawyers, doctors, and MPs to align the penal code with this policy.
[12] AJS and Ministry of Health (MOH) officials wanted the law to provide for abortion in the cases of rape or incest.
[14] Organizations such as AJS and the Dakar-based Open Society Initiative for West Africa have worked to educate judges and politicians.
[15] Siggil Jigeen, a network of 18 women's rights groups, began discussions of legalizing abortion in July 2010, led by Fatou Kiné Camara of the University of Dakar and the AJS.
[19][20] In 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Committee urged Senegal to legalize abortion as well as homosexuality.
[15] Camara, as president of AJS, led a campaign to legalize medical abortion unconditionally up to twelve weeks of pregnancy.
[23] Moustapha Diakhaté, head of the United in Hope party, voiced support for a law allowing medication abortion, saying it would decrease arrests and deaths.
In February 2023, the Task Force and Planned Parenthood led a discussion urging the president to bring the law in line with the Maputo Protocol.
The director of the advocacy committee for access to medical abortion in the cases of rape and incest, Aissatou Ndiaye, spoke about the importance of such a provision.
[28] It responded to religious backlash in a 2021 press release maintaining that it was "not about legalizing abortion" but that its goal was to save lives.
[29] The Caliph of the Tijaniyyah of Tivaouane, Serigne Babacar Sy, told the Minister of Interior he opposed the medication abortion reform.
[10] A pharmaceutical black market in Dakar's city center, Keur Serigne Bi, is a popular place to buy abortion pills.
[35] Birth control is uncommon as the topic is taboo, some husbands do not allow their wives to use it, and people have misconceptions about negative health effects.
Marie Stopes International (MSI) provides family planning services through mobile clinics, education sessions, and individual discussions.
[45] The National Agency of Statistics and Demography of Senegal [fr] estimated that, in 2012, 25% of trials in felony court were of mothers charged with abortion–related crimes.
Her mother, supported by AJS, brought the case to the state prosecutor, and the rapist was put in police custody.
Women can receive contraceptive pills, condoms, or hormonal implants immediately, as well as intrauterine devices after the procedure is confirmed complete.
[63] Health workers perform an interrogation that determine the patient's medical history and the chances they induced an abortion.
[67] Before Senegal's health system introduced PAC, the most common methods of uterine evacuation were D&C and digital curettage.
[2] In February 2017, newborn corpses were found in the parking lot of Dakar's Léopold Sédar Senghor Stadium and at the market in Pikine.
[6] Infanticides are motivated by situations of rape, incest, forced marriages, poverty, adultery, and social hostility.
[73][71] In Dakar, as of 2006, the most likely women to be arrested for abortion or infanticide are below 25, have little education, are in polygamous marriages, are from poor peri-urban areas, or have experienced trauma.
