80000 Too Many

Abortion in Zimbabwe is regulated by the Termination of Pregnancy Act enacted by Rhodesia’s white minority government in 1977. The law permits abortion under only three circumstances if the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman or threatens to permanently impair her physical health, if the child may be born with serious physical or mental defects, or if the fetus was conceived as a result of rape or incest. The Criminal Law Code carries a five-year sentence for performing or accessing abortion outside these circumstances, a provision that has been used to target and ultimately imprison women. Additionally, the patriarchal norms that prevail in the country have created a culture of shame and silence that impacts the autonomy that women have over their bodies. It has been reported that over 80000 unsafe abortions are performed every year resulting in 20000 maternal deaths.
The aim of this project is to eliminate stigma through storytelling and create a call to action across the sexual reproductive health rights field in Zimbabwe. The 80000 Too Many is an abortion storytelling project to demystify and destigmatize abortion, with the broader goal of strengthening lobbying, and resource mobilization and facilitating creative collaboration to decriminalize and support safe abortion in Zimbabwe. Under this project we collected versatile stories of abortion across the country to be showcased at a public abortion education campaign that brought together educators, artists, sexual reproductive experts, and abortion storytellers to facilitate knowledge creation and sharing, network, and coalition building, and advocacy among activists, stakeholders, governments, donors/funders, and civil society organizations who support the right to safe abortion.

The project leverages on the community of an organization production, The Feminist Bar Podcast to disseminate abortion stories and share creative strategies toward decriminalization.

Funded by Black Feminist Fund and Urgent Action Fund Africa