Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Hillary Fyfe, Zambia

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In Zambia, women are becoming the breadwinners more and more. This is due to many factors. Bad economy, retrenchments of husbands and general joblessness. While men are ashamed to do certain jobs, women will do any job in order to feed their families.

Despite all the hard work, these women are always in bad health. There are not enough health facilities to reach women. They cannot even stop long enough to take care of themselves when they are really sick. They are however the caregivers even to the unemployed husbands. Because they cannot get reproductive health education, these women end up with more children than they need, and not spaced out. When such a woman falls ill, death is inevitable within such a short time because there is no food, no medication, and no case.

Proponents of the gag rule believe that by withholding funds they will put a stop to abortions, but this is not true. By withholding funds from African NGOs, the US government is actually taking away lifeline from women. The Global Gag rule has tied abortion to family planning, reproductive health and general health education and counseling. This means that women cannot get information about anything thereby leaving them open to unsafe abortions.

Some of the ways used in abortions are: swallowing pounded glass, pushing sharp needles or other unsafe instruments through uterus, pushing poisonous substances up their vaginas like cuttings from trees/roots, drinking bleach mixed with glass, or overdosing on malaria pills. All of the above end up with the death of both mother and child. Or the child dies and the mother is crippled for life. These cases are a daily occurrence. With more funding, we can beef up our campaign and educational programs so that women are aware of what goes on in their bodies.

updated: 7/14/2004