Kenya

Constitutional Debate Over Abortion Heats Up in Advance of July Vote

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Constitutional Debate Over Abortion Heats Up in Advance of July Vote

Kibera, a Kenyan slum. The site of many unsafe abortions.

Publication Date

NAIROBI, KENYA – The walk to Evelyn’s house is long and difficult. A half-mile hike through Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum, over trenches of raw sewage and huge garbage heaps, reveals a home made of scrap metal, browning with rust.

She sits outside her home in an old, dirty wheelchair. She is in her forties, but appears much older. Ill health, difficult living conditions and family tragedy have taken a toll. 

Evelyn, 45, is a widow, a mother of four and HIV positive. She is paralyzed. She is alone.

In early 2007, she was hospitalised at Kenyatta National Hospital for nearly two years with Tuberculosis. She suffered spinal damage and has since been confined to a wheelchair.  In May of 2008, her husband died from complications of AIDS and tuberculosis. When her husband died, Sarah, her eldest daughter, dropped out of school to help take care of her family.

“My daughter, Sarah, left school at the age of 13 when my husband died so she could help feed her other siblings and my two nieces,” Evelyn says.

Sarah would go from door to door looking for manual jobs. She would take any work that was offered to her. “Whenever she was lucky, we fed well. On other unlucky days we stayed hungry,” Evelyn says of her daughter’s efforts.

As the financial crisis mounted in Kenya, it was deeply felt by the people in Kibera, Africa’s second largest slum, after South Africa’s Soweto.

Evelyn winces in pain as she admits that eventually, the only thing people would pay her daughter for was sex.

Sarah earned as little as 100 shillings, $1.33 USD, to sleep with men who would often refuse to wear condoms. “She could not get paid if she did not consent to unprotected sex,” her mother says matter-of-factly.

Within a matter of months, Sarah became pregnant. She procured an unsafe, illegal abortion without telling her mother.  “Sarah never wanted to disclose to me her health condition,” Evelyn says. “She suffered in silence until she was bedridden.” Only then did she tell her mother what she had been through.

“I never saw a darker moment in my life then when I realized my daughter’s life was at stake,” she says.

Sarah’s uterus was completely destroyed by the procedure and she developed a septic infection.  “I could not take Sarah to hospital because abortion is illegal in Kenya,” Evelyn says. “And neither could I have let my neighbors get wind of it because of shame and because [they would] report my daughter to the police.”

Evelyn was able to obtain painkillers and antiseptic cream, but it was too late. She watched as Sarah died at home, in her bed. She was 14. 

 

Debate Rages as New Constitution Takes Effect

Sarah’s story is not unique. With thousands of clandestine abortions estimated to take place in Kenya every year, the abortion debate has taken center stage amidst constitutional reform.  Church leaders oppose a provision in the newly approved version of the national constitution that includes emergency exceptions to the country's abortion ban. Opponents of the provision, if passed is scheduled to be implemented by 2012, say that the definition of the beginning of life is not clearly defined and does not fulfil their preferred “life begins at conception” definition.

The new constitutional clause offers the right to abortion for women on emergency medical grounds. The change was proposed after a new report by the World Health Organization revealed that more than 300,000 unsafe abortions occur in Kenya annually, killing thousands. Kenyans will vote on the new version of the constitution in July.

“I think it is a lost battle for the churches because the lobby [for] abortion has money to dish out to the Members of Parliament,” says Gigi Anataloni a Consolata priest based in Turin, Italy, suggesting fraud. Anataloni, a former editor of The Seed magazine, spoke to the Press Institute’s Nairobi News Desk by phone.

The new constitution is being drafted as a result of political promises that emerged in the wake of violence after the 2007 election here that left 1300 people dead and thousands displaced.

Anataloni says he believes even if the new constitution passes in July, the church will not have failed in its efforts to “show Kenyans the right way.” But redrafting and constitution is complicated political business. There will be winners and losers.

Christian-Muslim Relations Play a Role

Throughout Africa, church groups have traditionally counted on Muslim support on “moral” issues. But so far it has been difficult to gauge Muslim reaction to the new provision here.

Many Muslims in Kenya say they are pleased with the new draft of the constitution, in part because of the favorable treatment of Kadhi Courts, Muslim courts that deal with Islamic marriage and inheritance issues.  

“We support the new constitution not only because of the Kadhi Courts but because of the devolution of power,” says Fowzy Twaha, a Muslim cleric here.

Twaha says the devolution of power to the county level will yield progress in many of the most underdeveloped coastal regions. 

“When Christians want a provision in the constitution for  “life begins at conception,” no Muslim raises an eyebrow. But when Muslims want Kadhi Courts in the Constitution, the Christians are up on arms,” says Twaha of the political tensions the two groups are struggling with.

Christians here have made statements of opposition about Kadhi Courts, saying it is a slippery slope that may lead to Sharia law – which can govern crime, politics, economics, banking, business, family, sexuality, hygiene and social issues according the Koran.

“I will vote ‘No’ on the referendum because of the Kadhi Courts,” says Joseph Adan, a former Muslim who recently converted to Christianity.

Politicians here are grappling to gain widespread support for the new constitution.

Ole Ntimama, a prominent Maasai leader, recently declared the document as “95 percent good.” As a result, many say they are beginning to change their minds. “I have now changed my mind to vote ‘yes’ for the coming referendum,” says Legei Le Legei, a civil servant working for the Kenya Revenue Authority, citing Ntimama’s remarks as a primary reason.

Legei says he was against the draft because of the abortion clause. “I believe the 5 percent can be amended at a later stage,” he added.

Support among tribal communities is also assumed to favor the new provision, as many tribal cultures have long allowed abortion. In the Samburu tribe, for example, girls are not allowed to get pregnant before marriage.  If it does happen, the Samburu have used a controversial, traditional procedure that expels the fetus after people step on the girl’s belly and administer often-dangerous concoctions, like tobacco and bitter herbs.

Unsafe Abortion Rates Soar in Kenya

As the politics of the abortion debate continue, women and girls in Kenya are dying in large numbers as a result of so-called back alley abortions that have become so common here. In 2009, the Center for Reproductive Rights released a report that revealed Kenya’s abortion-related death rates were substantially higher than any other country in the East African region and nine times higher than in developed regions of the world. The report classified Kenya’s abortion laws as “one of the most restrictive in the world,” and estimated that 35 percent of maternal deaths are a direct consequence of unsafe abortion.

Despite the high numbers, abortion remains an unspoken reality here. “The word abortion does not exist in the traditional set-up. It is referred to as bleeding," says Dr. Margaret Meme, the head of Maternal and Child Health in the Ministry of Health in Nairobi. Meme says authorities attribute most abortions deaths to “bleeding,” in order to conceal the prominence of unsafe abortions here.

For many, the debate over abortion has come too late. Evelyn says the politics means nothing to her.  The current law, she says, resulted in a death sentence for her daughter. The debate, “has stirred up the bad memories of my daughter’s death."