World Contraception Day will be marked globally today

The day, which was launched in 2007, and has been marked globally every year on 26th September, is meant to improve awareness of contraception and to enable young people to make informed choices on their sexual and reproductive health.

It centers around a vision where every pregnancy is wanted and the aim is to help each new generation of adults make informed decisions until every pregnancy in the world is a planned one.

This resonates well with UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund’s vision of delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

This is also more relevant to Lesotho as the country is currently faced with a challenge of high cases of unsafe abortion as witnessed by high patient load at the referral hospital - Queen ‘Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) of complications of abortion.

The country is also in the process of producing maternal death report which shows that some causes of maternal deaths are due to complications of unsafe abortion.

It is of paramount importance that every woman must be free to decide when to start child bearing and when to stop.  It is the right of every woman to have a choice on the number and spacing of their children.

In Lesotho, UNFPA supports procurement of family planning commodities for and on behalf of the Government of Lesotho in an effort to ensure commodity security.  UNFPA also supports the Ministry of Health in the policy direction and creating enabling environment to increase access and uptake of family planning.