Unsafe abortion on rise in Jhapa, Nepal

JANAKPURDHAM, Dec 27: The number of women availing unsafe abortion services in Dhanusha district is as high as 100, a day, according to manager of the Nepal Family Planning Association, Dhanusha, Ram Bahadur Karki.

Speaking at an interaction held by the Association with journalists, Karki said unsafe abortions are a matter of grave concern in the district.

Most of the women who had undergone unsafe abortions have been suffering from long-term diseases due to the use of unsafe methods like feeding lead and inserting sticks into the uterus for abortion by traditional rural medical practitioners.

Karki said excessive bleeding, wounds in the uterus and lack of sanitation during unsafe abortion lead to many complications in women's health.

Secretary of the association Nathunilal Das said unskilled and fake medical practitioners have been promoting unsafe abortion as their business.

Health worker Pawan Dhungel said women to prefer to go for unsafe abortion due to social reasons.
Vice-president of the association Ramnarayan Thakur said expansion of safe abortion centres alone cannot discourage unsafe abortions, but the information on safe abortion should be parallelly communicated in an effective manner.