COPUA releases Amayi Akuferanji Music Album; Launch Saturday This Week
The Coalition for the Prevention of Unsafe
Abortion (COPUA) is set to release 11 track music album entitled ‘Amayi
Akuferanji’ highlighting problems of unsafe abortions and advocating for change
of current abortion laws
The album has different genres of music
featuring eleven artists among them a famous poet Joseph Mazeze who are in
their message highlighting the problems of unsafe abortions which affects the
health and lives of women and girls in Malawi.
The Malawi Ministry of Health recorded in 2009
that the magnitude of unsafe abortions was over 70,000 women and girls who
induce abortions every year. Out of these, over 30,000 women and girls end up
with complications that require to be treated at the hospital and all this is happening
since abortion remains a criminal act.
As a Special Law Commission is in the process of
reviewing the current Abortion laws, COPUA hopes this to be a right time to
come up with ‘Amayi Akuferanji’ music album to raise awareness and educate the
public about the need for laws that will promote reproductive health of women.
“We hope to gain support for law reform, through
music,” said Godfrey Kangaude and continued “Music is a mode of communication
that is effective in spreading messages to large audience.”
He added “COPUA thought that it could use this
channel of communication to engage as many Malawians as possible with messages
supporting reproductive health and rights of girls and women.”
“We urge all Malawians, through the music in
this album to reflect on the lives of girls and women that we lose every day
due to complications of unsafe abortions, and those that are living with its
negative consequences. We call upon all Malawians to unite and support the
reform of abortion laws in order to save the lives and protect the health of
our mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, relatives and friends” pleaded
Kangaude
The free show for album launch of Amayi
Akuferanji is on 22 November afternoon at Airstrip in Mangochi district and
COPUA says the album will be free.
COPUA is a network of over 40 Civil Society
Organisations and Individuals in partnership with various government institutions
and partners to find lasting solutions to the challenge of unsafe abortions in
Malawi.
The underlying cause of unsafe abortions is in
Malawi is failure to access safe abortion since current laws restrict access to
abortion only to conditions where the life of the pregnant women is in danger.
This forces women and girls to terminate their pregnancy through unsafe methods
which sometimes results in permanent disability or death.
Studies have estimated that 17% of maternal
deaths are a result of unsafe abortions. And the most marginalized girls and
women bear the greatest burden of unsafe abortion as those who are more
privileged can afford relatively safe abortions.
There is hope that where girls and women are
allowed to access safe abortion, the incidence of unsafe abortion is very low.
