The frantic banging on the gate came late at night. Neighbours rushed to open it as a group of young people struggled to help a female student who could barely stand. She was vomiting, gasping for breath and clutching her stomach in agony.
To a young neighbour watching the scene unfold, it looked like a case of poisoning. By morning, dark stains of dried blood marked the staircase of the three-storey building. Days later, the young woman, identified by neighbours as Afusat Kehinde (not real name), was dead. An undergraduate.
At the time, those living in the building knew very little. According to Damilola Danbaba, a neighbour who witnessed her arrival, Afusat, had been brought from her tertiary institution, in Ilorin, to her mother’s home in Lagos after falling critically ill. She repeatedly complained of severe abdominal pain, became increasingly frail, lost a significant amount of weight and was frequently bedridden.
Her family reportedly believed she had been poisoned and later questioned people close to her, including her roommate, as they searched for answers. It was only after investigations by the family that they concluded she had died from complications arising from an unsafe abortion.
Those close to the family later disclosed that Afusat, had concealed the pregnancy and decided to procure the abortion because she feared telling her mother who was known to be very strict. The silence proved fatal. Looking back years later, the neighbour vividly remembers the haunting images of that night—the young student rolling her eyes, struggling to breathe, and the blood that stained the staircase. What seemed like a mysterious illness was, according to the family, the final chapter of a desperate attempt to end an unintended pregnancy in secrecy.
Afusat’s story mirrors a wider public health crisis in Nigeria. According to the Guttmacher Institute, an estimated 1.25 million induced abortions occurred in Nigeria in 2012, many of them carried out in unsafe conditions because unsafe termination of pregnancy is legally restricted except to save the life of the pregnant woman. The organisation estimates that about 212,000 women were treated in health facilities for complications of induced unsafe termination of pregnancy, while hundreds of thousands more who developed serious complications never received the care they needed.
The findings underscore the heavy burden unsafe termination of pregnancy places on women, families and Nigeria’s healthcare system.
The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies unsafe abortion as one of the leading but preventable causes of maternal death worldwide. In Nigeria, abortion has long been recognised as a significant contributor to maternal mortality, particularly among young women who delay seeking medical care because of stigma, fear or legal restrictions. Public health experts continue to advocate for expanded access to modern contraception, comprehensive sexuality education and timely reproductive healthcare to reduce unintended pregnancies and prevent avoidable deaths.
Unfortunately, Afusat has added to the uncomplimentary data on unsafe abortion in Nigeria. Many efforts are on, to halt this.
And that informed an non governmental organisation (NGO), Women Advocate Research and Documentation Center (WARDC)’s to push the boat out on young women, teenagers, and women who have passed on as a result of unsafe abortion.
According to Dr Abiola Akiode-Afolabi, founder and executive director, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), the NGO will continue to focus on gender justice, women’s right, and combating gender-based violence. Hence, “a project tagged- ‘The Memorial’, is put up to create more awareness, about the fact that it is not about the data or percentage, but about the effects of unsafe abortion, it is a reality that behind those numbers are human beings, children, people who are supposed to be leaders of their families, and the backbone of their parents.
“So The memorial is to bring it to reality that unsafe abortion is real and quite a number of people are dying as a result of unsafe abortion. Unsafe termination of pregnancy, our position is that Nigeria has one of the highest maternal mortality, and unsafe termination of pregnancy has contributed immensely to it. There is a need for the government to take steps to ensure that they address the issue of unsafe abortion, to be able to save more women’s life.”
To address this headlong, Dr Akiode-Afolabi opined that, “there is a need to review the laws on abortion in Nigeria. This is because criminalising abortion has not addressed the problem. So it is important to have law that allows for women to make a choice, a particularly law that allows for abortion in exceptional cases, like in the case of foetal abnormality, rape, incest, in line with the Maputo protocol. Section 14, subsection (2) (c) that allows for safe termination of pregnancy in cases of rape. There are many people who have been affected by rape and incest, and because of stigma and discrimination in their society, committed suicide. So the law should be able to support the vulnerable. And not to criminalise their actions.
“So The Memorial is to bring to fore, these issues and to bring the women’s stories out, so the policy makers can do the needful to address the issues of unsafe abortion.”
It is on record that Nigeria’s obligations under the Maputo Protocol are particularly relevant to the problem of unsafe abortion. Article 14(2)(c) requires States Parties to authorise medical abortion in cases of rape, sexual assault, incest, or where continuation of the pregnancy endangers the mental or physical health or life of the woman, or the life of the foetus. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has emphasised the need for States to remove legal and administrative barriers to safe abortion in circumstances covered by the Protocol.
Although Nigeria has ratified the Maputo Protocol, its domestic abortion laws remain restrictive, creating a significant gap between its regional human-rights commitments and national law. For WARDC, this makes implementation of Article 14(2)(c) an important advocacy issue, particularly in efforts to prevent unsafe abortion and the resulting deaths and injuries. Ensuring that women and girls can access safe reproductive healthcare within the circumstances recognised by the Protocol is therefore both a women’s rights and public-health priority.
For the neighbour who witnessed Afusat’s final hours, the memory has never faded. What began as a confusing midnight emergency later became a painful lesson about the consequences of fear, silence and unsafe termination of pregnancy. Today, the image of the young student being carried through the gate, fighting for every breath, remains a grim reminder that behind every statistic is a daughter, a family and a future cut tragically short.
Sources: Guttmacher Institute, Abortion in Nigeria Fact Sheet and The Incidence of Abortion in Nigeria; World Health Organization (WHO), Abortion Care Guideline and WHO resources on unsafe abortion.
NB: This report was facilitated by Women Advocate Research and Documentation Center (WARDC) as part of the Memorial Campaign on Ending Preventable Deaths from Unsafe Abortion in Lagos State. Series 2.
The name of the deceased is changed, based on demand.
