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ABUBEF clinic, Burundi

News item

IPPF Statement on US State department 6 month GGR review

Global gag rule impact for IPPF is a life or death situation for clients

Global gag rule impact for IPPF is a life or death situation for clients

The impact for people receiving care from member associations of the International Planned Parenthood Federation around the world is devastating. A total of 29 countries are seeing clinics, staffing, services and health supplies reduced due to the loss of US funding through the global gag rule. The policy, the most extreme of its kind, will hurt family planning , HIV, sexual and gender based violence and Tuberculosis healthcare for men, women and young people. 

IPPF’s members believe reproductive health care is a right and everyone should be able to make choices about their well-being. The Global Gag Rule not only undermines but violates these rights and therefore, IPPF and its members cannot and will not support it.

The review is unable to quantify the long term effects of the Global Gag Rule. But those effects are already being felt by people in need of care. IPPF members have already been forced to close clinics, reduce staff and cut back on critical health supplies. This is just the beginning of a long lasting and tragic legacy.

The cuts hit services and people in a many ways. Not all of them can be quantified. In many cases, IPPF Members are the one lifeline for our clients. The human cost – people not being able to make choices about their lives – is beyond figures.

Combined with loss of USAID family planning funding, the added loss of HIV funding doubles the impact on clients’ lives and health in many countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean where the amounts of the losses are larger and the populations affected are often the most marginalised and vulnerable.

Examples of impact:

Mozambique www.ippf.org/blogs/global-gag-rule-ggr-cuts-deep-sexual-and-reproductive-healthcare-mozambique

IPPF Member Association: Associação Moçambicana para Desenvolvimento da Família (AMODEFA)

  • USAID support accounted for 60% of funding
  • 47% reduction in AMODEFA personnel: redundancy of 43 staff and release of 650 peer educators
  • Closure of 18 youth-friendly clinics
  • Closure of 72 mobile clinics per month

Swaziland: IPPF Member Association: Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS)

  • USAID support accounted for 25% of funding
  • Redundancy of 12 staff and 26 outreach workers
  • Reduced geographic coverage of services from 14 to 4 towns

Botswana: IPPF Member Association: Botswana Family Welfare Association (BOFWA)

  • 60% of funding at risk
  • Suspension of one clinic, services of 7 others scaled to bare minimum
  • 71% reduction in skilled staff

About IPPF:

IPPF is made up of national organisations that offer sexual and reproductive health and rights services. The Federation has 141 Member Associations and 24 partners covering over 170 countries.This globally connected, locally owned network delivers 300 services every minute of every day.

Human cost in figures www.ippf.org/news/human-cost-global-gag-rule

Global gag 1 year on www.ippf.org/resource/global-gag-rule-one-year and www.ippf.org/global-gag-rule

Country stories:

www.ippf.org/stories/i-am-afraid-what-will-happen-when-there-will-be-no-more-projects-one

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Subject

Abortion Care