My colleague has just taken a call from a young Northern Irish woman in tears. Facing an unwanted pregnancy and unable to tell her family, the teenager had flown to England in secret to get an abortion. When she arrived at the clinic, however, her taxi was surrounded by protestors. Too scared to get out of the car, she had rung the clinic in floods of tears to ask a nurse to come and get her.
Her story is not unique. Each week, 28 women from Northern Ireland are forced to travel to England for an abortion, making the difficult journey away from home - often alone - to access a healthcare service which is freely, safely and legally available to women in the rest of the UK. For many others, travel is not an option and their only choice is continuing an unwanted pregnancy or risking life imprisonment buying abortion pills illegally online.
This injustice hits me hard. As the Chief Nurse at Marie Stopes UK, I know the effort our teams put in to make what can be a difficult day for many women that little bit better. They hold women’s hands, listen to their stories and care for their spirits and it angers me that the law as it stands makes their job so much harder.
The consequences also frighten me. Growing up in my parents’ native Sierra Leone, between the ages of 11 and 15, I know only too well that restrictive laws don’t prevent abortions, they just make them happen illegally and unsafely.
Although it is never spoken about, practically everyone in Sierra Leone knows someone who has been affected in some way by unsafe abortion. My mum was a nurse and would treat and refer girls who came to her bleeding and infected after inserting sticks or visiting backstreet abortionists. Sometimes though it was too late and the damage was already done.
Despite living on opposite sides of the world, the sobbing teenage girl comforted by my colleague and the bleeding woman who was treated by my mum are both suffering because of the same law: the Victorian-era Offences against the Person Act.
Created in 1861, this colonial-era law, was introduced before women in the UK were allowed to vote, yet continues to harm women and girls around the world.
But today, on International Women’s Day, it feels as if change is in the air. Both Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone are standing at a crossroads with an opportunity to redress the balance and consign this cruel, degrading law to history.
In Sierra Leone, the election of President Julius Maada Bio in March last year has raised hopes that a bill could finally be passed permitting access to safe abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and up to 24 weeks in cases of rape, incest or risk to the mother’s life. A similar bill was rejected twice by his predecessor but progress is now looking hopeful, inspired in part by the new First Lady Fatima Bio and her Hands Off Our Girls programme, which seeks to end child marriage and gender violence.
In Northern Ireland, a policy change by the UK government has given women the right to access free abortion in England and following the resounding vote to repeal the Eighth amendment in the Republic of Ireland, pressure is mounting on them to go further and allow women in the North the same levels of care, dignity and respect as women are afforded in the rest of the UK.
I want to live in a world where each and every woman has the power to determine what happens to her body and her future, because when a woman is able to decide if and when to have children, life-changing events happen. So today, on International Women’s Day, as the women of the world stand together for equality, I call on the UK and Sierra Leone governments to offer a hand to our sisters. Because if every woman has that power, her community and our planet thrive.
Evonne Hunt is the executive director of nursing and chief nurse at Marie Stopes UK