Webinar: From Criminalisation to Care: Self-Managed Abortion in Africa [11 November 2025]

The webinar explores how regional human rights standards intersect with self-managed abortion and why decriminalisation is a public health and human rights necessity.

Why participate?

Across Africa, restrictive abortion laws continue to endanger the health, rights, dignity and lives of women and girls. In many countries, abortion remains criminalised except under narrow circumstances, forcing countless individuals to seek unsafe and clandestine procedures thereby resulting in loss of life. However, emerging evidence shows that self-managed abortion, when conducted using safe and effective methods outside of clinical settings, offers a viable, empowering, and rights-affirming alternative.

Grounded in the research of Pizzarossa, Maziwisa, and Durojaye "Self-Managed Abortion in Africa: The Decriminalization Imperative in Regional Human Rights Standards. Health and Human Rights (2023) 25 (1), p.171", this webinar will explore the intersection between self-managed abortion and regional human rights standards. It will make a compelling case for decriminalisation as both a public health and a human rights imperative.

The panel will unpack how criminal laws on abortion create systemic barriers to care and violate key rights of women and girls, including the right to equality and non-discrimination; the right to dignity and bodily autonomy; the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment all guaranteed under the African regional human rights instruments.

This timely conversation will feature the African regional human rights perspectives in the context of self-managed abortion. In addition, participants will hear country case studies examining the legal and social dimensions of self-managed abortion across diverse African contexts; and litigation perspectives from practitioners operating at the intersection of law and reproductive rights

This webinar offers multidisciplinary insights—spanning legal, medical, and advocacy viewpoints—on how to promote safe, accessible, and rights-based approaches to self-managed abortion within Africa’s legal frameworks.

Join us in this webinar conversation to be part of a growing movement to ensure that all women and girls across the continent can exercise their reproductive rights safely, freely, and with dignity.

Discussion Highlights:

• How do Africa’s regional human rights frameworks, such as the Maputo Protocol and African Commission jurisprudence, support the decriminalisation of abortion and recognition of self-managed abortion as a legitimate form of care?
• What are the practical, legal, and social barriers women and girls face in accessing safe self-managed abortion in Africa, and how do these barriers intersect with broader issues of inequality, stigma, and criminalisation?
• What strategies can advocate, policymakers, and healthcare providers adopt to advance decriminalisation and integrate self-managed abortion into broader sexual and reproductive health rights agendas across the continent?

Programme:

Facilitator: Favour Akanbi, Dullah Omar Institute, University of the Western Cape

Panelists:

• Nyokabi Njogu - Center for Reproductive Rights [Kenya]
• Ebenezer Durojaye - Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria [South Africa]
• Amon Aruho - Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria [South Africa]
• Ngozi Chukwuma - ATHENA Network [Nigeria]
• Timothy Thondu - Center for Reproductive Rights [Kenya office]

Q & A Session

Closing Remarks: Gladys Mirugi-Mukundi, Dullah Omar Institute, University of the Western Cape

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Following registration, participants will receive a confirmation email with details on how to join the webinar.

We gratefully acknowledge AmplifyChange for making this webinar possible.