Kakaire A. Kirunda reports for the Monitor (Kampala):
October 31, 2007
The government is under renewed pressure to embrace the protocol to the African charter on human and peoples’ rights on the rights of women in Africa, also known as the Maputo Protocol.
Women activists demanded ratification of the protocol at a recent workshop in Kampala. The protocol, which came into force in October 2005, covers a broad range of women’s rights ranging from the elimination of discrimination against women to health and reproductive rights.
However, Article 14 of the protocol that calls for the legalisation of medical abortion especially in cases of sexual assault, rape and incest has drawn criticism from religious leaders.
Reproductive rights activists have since argued that the continued failure by several Africa Union Governments has greatly contributed to maternal mortality. In Uganda alone, maternal mortality stands at close to 500 per 100,000 live births.
And an estimated 300,000 abortions (most of them unsafe) are carried out every year. Although the protocol espouses the right to life, its support for "reproductive rights" has been interpreted as a nod of approval to abortion.