Program Support Director - Francophone and Lusophone Africa

International Safe Abortion Day: from rights to reality. by Alexandra Wilson | September 28, 2026 On International Safe Abortion Day, Oxfam celebrate an important truth: rights only matter when people can exercise them. Around the world, progress has been made to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Laws have changed, policies have evolved, and investments have expanded access to essential services. Yet for many women, girls and gender-diverse people, stigma, discrimination, lack of information, and under-resourced health systems continue to stand between rights on paper and reality. That was a central message at a recent gathering of advocates, health providers, policymakers, funders and civil society organizations in Ottawa. The evening celebrated Canada's contribution to SRHR at home and around the world, while asking an important question: how do Oxfam protect and build on progress in an increasingly challenging global environment? For Oxfam's CHOICE project, the answer begins with a simple principle: bodily autonomy requires more than legal rights. It requires access to information, quality health services, supportive communities, and the ability to make informed decisions free from coercion, stigma, and discrimination. Turning rights into reality. CHOICE is a seven-year, Global Affairs Canada-funded, gender-transformative project implemented by Oxfam Canada and partners in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The project advances SRHR by strengthening agency, supporting resilient and gender-responsive health systems, and working alongside local civil society organizations to advocate for change. At its core, CHOICE recognizes that people cannot exercise their rights if the systems around them prevent them from doing so. Across the three countries, barriers look different. In Zambia, abortion is legally permitted, yet stigma, limited availability of trained providers and lack of awareness about available services can still prevent people from accessing care. In Malawi, restrictive abortion laws create additional challenges. Across all three countries, social norms, gender inequality, economic barriers and health-system constraints shape whether people can access the services they need. Changing laws and policies is essential - but it is only part of the solution. From policy to practice. During the Ottawa event, Chalumba Mutengo of Ipas Zambia reflected on the gap that can exist between legal rights and people's lived experiences. He shared how, despite decades of legal access to abortion in Zambia, a young woman seeking care may still encounter stigma, misinformation or providers who lack the training and support to offer compassionate, rights-based services. Her rights may exist in law. But her experience depends on what happens when she walks through the door of a health facility. Chalumba Mutengo from Ipas Zambia speaking at the Its Rights, Its Values: Canada's Commitment to SRHR event last week in Ottawa, Ontario. Photo: Mikaela Roberts/Oxfam Closing that gap requires investment in trained health providers, stronger health systems, community engagement, accurate information and efforts to challenge the stigma that prevents people from seeking care. It is also why long-term investment matters. Sustainable change takes time. It requires building trust, strengthening institutions, and supporting the people who deliver services and advocate for rights every day. Sustaining progress in uncertain times. The celebration was also an opportunity to acknowledge how much the global environment is changing. Anti-rights movements are increasingly organized. Development financing is under pressure. Civil society organizations are operating in more challenging environments. At the same time, health systems are confronting overlapping pressures - from pandemics and climate-related shocks to weak governance and limited resources. In this context, sustaining progress on SRHR requires long-term commitment. It means protecting funding for SRHR even when political attention shifts. It means investing in resilient health systems rather than short-term fixes. It means strengthening local organizations so they can continue advocating for rights and delivering change beyond the life of an individual project. And it means generating and sharing evidence so that policies, programs and investments respond to what communities actually need. Canada's role. Canada has played an important role in advancing SRHR internationally, including through investments that support bodily autonomy, gender equality and access to comprehensive SRHR. That leadership matters. But leadership is not only about what Canada says. It is also about the partnerships it builds, the evidence it supports, the resources it commits, and the space it creates for local organizations to lead. CHOICE is one example of what that commitment can make possible: a partnership bringing together Canadian and international organizations with local actors across Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe to address interconnected barriers to SRHR. Progress worth celebrating - and building on. International Safe Abortion Day is both a celebration and a call to action. Oxfam can celebrate the advocates, health workers, communities, organizations, governments and funders who have advanced SRHR and challenged stigma. But progress is never self-sustaining. The work now is to protect hard-won gains while building systems where everyone can exercise their SRHR with dignity, agency and without discrimination. That means sustaining investment, strengthening partnerships, supporting local leadership, and ensuring people can access the care they need - not just in principle, but in practice. Alexandra Wilson is the Program Manager for SRHR, International Programs at Oxfam Canada. Discover more stories. Conflict and War Decisions about the future of Gaza must be made by Palestinians, with respect for basic human rights and self-determination. by Oxfam Canada | September 18, 2026 Women's Transformative Leadership, Women's Economic Justice During a recent visit to Oxfam Pacific in Suva, Fiji, I spent the day in discussions with colleagues on the Women Power project - an initiative focused on strengthening women's leadership and economic resilience across the Pacific. by Erin Kiley | September 14, 2026

Congresswoman misleads about UNFPA's funding to abortion group. (C-Fam, Washington, D.C.) At a hearing on UN reform in the U.S. House [...] Representative Madeleine Dean (D-PA) gave false information about the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and abortion. She told the House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee that "there is misinformation about what kind of healthcare services the agency does and does not provide...neither UNFPA nor any other UN agency provides abortions. Full stop." Dean held up a UNFPA birthing supplies kit and said, "The [Trump] administration should be ashamed" for cutting funds to the agency. UNFPA reported a loss of $377 million in canceled U.S. government grants. Dean's comments echo UNFPA talking points: "UNFPA does not fund or perform abortions." However, a single example proves these to be false claims by UNFPA and Congresswoman Dean. In 2017, UNFPA provided funding to the abortion group Ipas in order to train abortionists and to provide abortions in refugee camps in Bangladesh, where Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar were living. Five years later, in 2022, Ipas continued to provide "comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services" in partnership with UNFPA at 49 locations. In Bangladesh, abortion is illegal, but an unusual loophole exists in the law: a first-trimester abortion conducted without a prior pregnancy test is referred to as "menstrual regulation," and is legal. An annual report from UNFPA's Bangladesh office claims that in 2021, "UNFPA-supported midwives...conducted 2,122 menstrual regulation procedures." Legal technicalities aside, the procedures are identical apart from the pregnancy test, and Ipas refers to "menstrual regulation (as abortion is known in Bangladesh)," leaving no ambiguity. However, UNFPA's promotion and provision of abortion internationally extends far beyond Bangladesh. Its procurement platform, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, offers manual vacuum aspirators, which are used to perform surgical abortions, as well as misoprostol and mifepristone, the drugs used in medication abortions... Editor's Note: Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. writes for C-Fam. This article first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (https://c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission. Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective. Its work is possible because of its donors. Please consider giving to further its work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity. Contact [email protected] for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content. Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email [email protected] with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see its Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!