Women in Swaziland (eSwatini)
are using unregulated family planning products that might cause cancer, a
leading sexual health expert has warned.
Bongani Msibi, Acting
Executive Director of Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS), said
unregulated products were available in the kingdom that often came without
instructions for their safe use. The products were designed to prevent pregnancy.
Msibi told a parliamentary forum
in Manzini misuse of the products increased the risk of cervical or breast
cancer.
Msibi said the government provided
regulated family planning products for free, but some people still used unregulated
ones.
Women’s sexual health is a controversial topic in
Swaziland where abortion is illegal but pills that purport to induce abortions
are openly on sale. In February 2020 a woman was sentenced to 30 years in jail
with the option of an E45,000 (US$2,700) fine for selling Cytotec pills which
induced abortion.
Under the Swazi
Constitution abortion is illegal in Swaziland except under strict
circumstances, including where a mother’s life is in danger.
Because abortions are
illegal in Swaziland it is difficult to say accurately how many are performed
in the kingdom. However, in August 2018 the Times of Swaziland reported that every
month, nurses at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital in Manzini
attended more than 100 cases of young women who had committed illegal
abortions.
The IRIN news agency,
quoting the FLAS, reported that in October 2012 more
than 1,000 women were treated for abortion-related complications at a
single clinic in Swaziland. Many of the deaths were the result of
haemorrhaging, while others resulted from the patient’s delay in seeking
medical treatment for other complications stemming from illegal terminations.
In November 2012 the IRIN
news agency reported that 16 percent of all women deaths in the government
hospital in Mbabane that year were the result of botched abortions. It said
that this figure was only those cases that were reported, there were certainly
other deaths unreported.
In December 2018 the Swazi Observer reported the number of
illegal ‘backstreet’ abortions taking place in Swaziland was ‘escalating’
because social media had made it easier to obtain abortion pills.
See also
Death
of Swaziland schoolgirl after illegal abortion highlights suffering of women in
kingdom
U.S.
halts funding to Swaziland NGO as anti-abortion policy bites
Swaziland college
principal reveals role abortions play in lives of his students
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