How to promote access to safe abortion services for Afrodescendant women in Colombia · Global Voices
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Women demonstrate in support of the decriminalization of Abortions outside the Colombian Constitutional Court house in Bogota, Colombia on January 20, 2022
This article written by Isabella Camargo is part of the #MarchWithUs campaign – one full month of stories from gender justice activists from across the globe. You can listen to the podcast episode with Ilex in Spanish here. A translated and edited version is published in Global Voices under a media partnership agreement.
It's February 2022 and the streets of Colombia are flooded with green. After years of struggle, the feminist movement, led by the organization Causa Justa, has just succeeded in getting the Constitutional Court of Colombia to vote in favor of ruling C-055, a historic moment in which abortion is decriminalized up to the 24th week of gestation.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, abortion remains highly restrictive or completely illegal in many countries, leading to serious health and life risks for women seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The decriminalization of abortion up to 24 weeks in Colombia marks an important milestone in the fight for women's reproductive rights in the region.
However, ruling C-055 marks a significant but partial historical advancement, as public policy measures still require substantial improvements. Indeed, while this ruling mandates the National Government to develop policies ensuring these conditions, entities like Ilex Acción Jurídica have shown that, in reality, these rights are not fully respected. Today, we understand that historical, cultural, and structural circumstances create this gap between theory and practice, particularly regarding certain communities and social groups.
Pro-Choice feminist movements demonstrate in the outskirts of the Constitutional Court, at the Justice Palace in support of the decriminalization of abortions in Colombia, in Bogota, Colombia on February 9, 2022. The debate has summed more than 500 days without a verdict. Photo by Sebastián Barros. Used with permission.
Founded in 2018, Ilex is an initiative led by six friends who are Afro-descendant lawyers, seeking to promote racial justice in Colombia after experiencing discrimination in their lives. Understanding racial justice as the eradication of all social, political, and economic barriers that have historically impacted the quality of life and the full realization of the rights of Afro-descendant people, Ilex focuses on three main strategic lines: socio-legal research, legal mobilization, and awareness raising.
Dayana Blanco, one of the founders of Ilex, points out that in countries like Colombia, racism manifests primarily through statistics but is not always perceived in the daily lives of non-racialized individuals, who may lack awareness of these realities:
The big problem with racism is that sometimes it's invisible. That's why organizations like Ilex, along with others, have been working for many years in the country and the region to make it visible.
For example, census data reveals higher rates of poverty, lower levels of access to education, and reduced life expectancy among the Afro-descendant population compared to others. Additionally, it is noted that Afro-descendant women are particularly vulnerable, with higher rates of informal employment and limited access to healthcare compared to other demographic groups. Therefore, Ilex emerges in a context of structural and “unconscious racism.” They aim to make it rise to the surface through intersectional, anti-racist, and ethnic-racial approaches.
Although ruling C-055 acknowledges the existing social barriers, inequalities in access to voluntary interruption of pregnancy persist due to inadequate implementation of said ruling. Still today, Colombian women face challenges in accessing safe abortion services, despite the procedure being decriminalized. These obstacles include limited availability of sexual and reproductive services, healthcare professionals’ lack of knowledge about safer abortion techniques, and restricted access to abortion facilities, among others. Afro-descendant women encounter these obstacles to an even greater extent.
Pro-Choice feminist movements demonstrate in the outskirts of the Constitutional Court, at the Justice Palace in support of the decriminalization of abortions in Colombia, in Bogota, Colombia on February 9, 2022. The debate has summed more than 500 days without a verdict. Photo by Sebastián Barros. Used with permission.
According to Ilex, Afro-descendant women are more affected by poverty, with a poverty femininity index of 121, while for non-Afro women, it is 116.6. Additionally, Afro women who are heads of household have a poverty rate of more than 10 percentage points higher than single-parent households headed by non-Afro women, in which the poverty rate is 31.8 percent. The mortality rate of Afro-descendant women is 1.8 times higher than that of non-Afro women.
In 2023, the Colombian Ministry of Health recognized these deficiencies and issued Resolution 051 to implement a differential approach. However, this resolution does not adequately address the specific vulnerabilities of Black women.
In response to Resolution 051 of 2023, Ilex initiated an investigation in three of the country's most vulnerable departments with the purpose of understanding and highlighting disparities in access to this service between Afro-descendant and “white pregnant individuals.”
In collaboration with Asoredipar-Chocó, an association of midwives, it was documented and evidenced that ethnic-racial disparities in access to health services are further intensified in the case of access to safe procedures for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.
When describing the hypotheses that guided this research process, Blanco explains:
The decriminalization of abortion alone does not automatically guarantee access for all women to this service, specifically those on the margins — impoverished, Black Afro-descendant, and Indigenous women. There are conditions of inequality that differentially impact these groups, especially when different systems of oppression such as ethnic-racial belonging and gender intersect.
Recognizing the need for public policies better tailored to the realities of certain ethnic and racial groups, in 2023, Ilex presented six arguments to the Colombian Ministry of Health. They are calling for the involvement of traditional healthcare systems, like midwives in certain regions, in training to reduce stigma around voluntary interruptions of pregnancy while respecting their cultural practices. Everyone, regardless of background, should have clear and helpful information about their reproductive rights.
In areas with poor healthcare, especially where Afro-descendant communities live, efforts should be made to ensure access to such services. Health records should include details about ethnicity to help tailor support. And, when educating about one’s rights, we need to be sensitive to the different experiences Afro-descendant women might have, especially regarding access to formal education.
As the advocacy process continues, Ilex is still awaiting the implementation of their recommendations.
The historic achievement represented by ruling C-055 in Colombia is part of a feminist wave that has been rising across the region. Since the emergence of the “Ni una menos“ (not one woman less) movement against femicide in 2015, feminism in Argentina, for instance, has been on the rise. In 2018, the campaign for legal, safe and free abortion inundated the streets with teenagers and college students, “las pibas,“ especially active.
Women demonstrate in support of the decriminalization of Abortions outside the Colombian Constitutional Court house in Bogota, Colombia on January 20, 2022. Photo by Sebastián Barros. Used with permission.
Yet resistance to the movement across the region is growing equally fast, primarily through social media, the so-called “manosphere,” but also via TV and radio personalities. In Argentina, the new president, Javier Milei, is threatening to undo the country’s abortion legalization as he “quickly became the voice of men feeling uncomfortable with the feminist movement”. Milei already eliminated the Ministry for Women, Gender and Diversity, and promised to ban sex education in schools.
Opposition to sexual and reproductive rights broadly conceived has become key for politicians seeking to boost conservative votes. Motivated by a return to “traditional values,” leaders have vowed to pursue restrictive reforms and promote hetero-patriarchal worldviews.
The work of organizations like Ilex is not over. They are constantly highlighting the importance of making visible women’s health needs, while combating structural and unconscious racism, promoting intersectional, anti-racist, and ethnic-racial approaches to provide sensitivity and access for all women across Colombia and the region.