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An average woman must use effective contraception for at least 20 years to limit her family size to two children.

Mr Richard Kuunaah, the Executive Director of GHANECare, a non-governmental organisation working to promote and protect the rights of women and children has said.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) Mr Kuunaah said two-thirds of unintended pregnancies in developing countries, including Ghana, occurred among women who were not using any method of contraception.

He indicated that more than 100 million married women in developing countries had an unmet need for contraception, adding that, five million women around the world were hospitalised annually for abortion-related complications.

Abortion related deaths

The Executive Director said almost all abortion-related deaths occurred in developing countries and the highest is in Africa, adding that approximately 220,000 children worldwide lose their mothers every year from abortion related-deaths.

Mr Kunaah mentioned economic burden on public health systems, loss of productivity, stigma and long term health problems such as infertility as some additional consequences of unsafe abortion.

He said more than one-third of approximately 205 million pregnancies that occurred annually around the globe were unintended, adding that about 20 per cent of all the pregnancies ended in induced abortion.

Project

Mr Kuunaah said the Mennion Daniels’s Limited under Amplify Change, a multilateral funding agency was supporting the one-year project being implemented in the Atebubu- Amantin District of the Brong Ahafo Region.

Dubbed: “Increasing young people’s awareness on unsafe abortion”, the project aimed at deepening the understanding of young people on unsafe abortion and related complications to end the practice.

Mr Kuunaah said the project, expected to end by January 2018, had trained 40 young women between 14 and 25 years and they were tasked to undertake outreach programmes in the local communities to sensitise their peers on the dangers of unsafe abortion.

They will also report cases of teenage pregnancies and illegal abortion practitioners in the communities.