Daily Times

The Marie Stopes Ladies who drive from village to village in the remote north of Burkina Faso offering free contraception, advice on family planning, sexual health and sometimes abortion, may have to stop work in June.

The ten have been entirely funded by a $1.25 million grant from USAID but the US development agency cut all money for Marie Stopes International when it refused to comply with a rule reinstated by Republican President Donald Trump in January 2017.

It bans funding to any foreign NGO carrying out or offering advice on abortions anywhere. The goal is to please Christian conservatives who strongly oppose abortion and are a major part of Trump’s political base.

MSI and the International Planned Parenthood Federation are among only four to reject the conditions of the order. They offer abortion services, in accordance with local rules, and say it is a last resort in preventing unwanted or unsafe births.

USAID says 733 other NGOS still receive funding. But in Africa, MSI and IPPF are the two largest NGO providers of free contraception and family planning advice.

The NGOs say the contraceptive programmes are crucial in Burkina, where the fertility rate is 5.5 births per woman.

In some villages the MS Ladies operate from government centres, supplementing the limited services on offer. The same grant also pays for training for health workers in 80 government clinics.

MSI says the cuts mean programmes affecting thousands of people in Burkina Faso are under threat.

“All those women who’ve been receiving free contraception will have to stop using it because they can’t afford it,” said Georges Coulibaly, Marie Stopes’ Burkina Faso manager told Reuters in the capital Ouagadougou.

Published in Daily Times, May 23^rd 2018.