Activist says hypocrisy derailing tabling of abortion bill

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A gender rights activist has expressed dissatisfaction over Parliament’s failure to table and discuss the Termination of Pregnancy bill.

Gender activist Emma Kaliya said Members of Parliament (MPs) had agreed to  one thing during the training on the bill and they change tune in other forums.

She said the MPs always say that they love their voters but in actual sense that’s not true because they could not have left women in their constituencies to be dying due to archaic laws on abortion.

kaliya
Emma kaliya : This is worrisome news.

“The problem is hypocrisy. We need MPs who can stand on the ground to help our women out there by tabling, discussing and passing of TOP bill,” she said.

Kaliya who heads NGO GCN is one of the signatories to a petition asking the Parliamentarians to discuss and pass the abortion bill into law.

Some of the well-known activists who have signed the petition include Lucky Mbewe, Father Kalimbe, Senior Chief Lukwa, Michael Kaiyatsa of Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) as well as Darlington Harawa and Robert Mkwezalamba of Human Rights Consultative Committee, (HRCC).

In Malawi 70,000 women and girls terminate pregnancies every year while 31,000 get treated of complications that comes due to unsafe termination of pregnancy.

Statistics further indicate that 17 percent of pregnancy related deaths in Malawi are attributed to unsafe abortion.