Poor women throughout the world face tremendous obstacles when trying to obtain even basic reproductive health care. Limited access to health services, lack of political will, legal restrictions, cultural taboos, and harsh gender inequality all conspire to put women at risk of harm resulting from pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and childbirth, and sexually transmitted infections.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been working internationally for more than 35 years to protect women's health by increasing access to reproductive health services and information. Today, our international program focuses on strengthening local organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean to provide these services, and to advocate for policies that support reproductive rights.

Our work addresses three strategic program priorities: preventing unsafe abortion and maternal mortality, protecting the sexual health of adolescents and youth, and advocacy to expand and protect reproductive rights. These priorities were selected because they are particularly in need of support, and because we believe PPFA's more than 90 years of experience protecting women's health can most effectively be harnessed in these areas. All of our projects include components to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

"It has been my dream to work for an institution that respects reproductive freedom so that every child born into this world will be loved and wanted. Working with PPFA has made that dream a reality." 
          — Romeo Arca Jr., PPFA senior program officer for the Philippines

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Preventing Unsafe Abortion

Unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality around the world. More than 19 million unsafe abortions take place each year, the vast majority in poor countries. PPFA works to overcome barriers to safe abortion and prevent unsafe abortion by increasing the availability of contraceptives and making sure that women have access to safe, affordable abortion care when necessary.

We provide funding to partner organizations to deliver family planning, safe abortion, and post-abortion care services. We help improve the quality of these services by training providers, developing medical protocols, and implementing new medical technologies.

With PPFA's partnership, these organizations are able to serve particularly vulnerable women, such as the young, poor, indigenous, rural, and internally displaced. Many of these organizations work in places that are socially and politically hostile to abortion, and the staff regularly face threats and attacks. In some cases, PPFA is the only source of support enabling providers to offer safe abortion services.

In Nepal, since the legalization of abortion in 2002, PPFA has worked with four local organizations to prevent unsafe abortions by informing people that the procedure can now be attained legally and safely; increasing the number of clinics providing safe abortion services; and establishing effective referral systems in this largely rural nation.

Protecting the Sexual Health of Adolescents and Youth

Throughout the world, young people are particularly vulnerable to unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS, due to their lack of power, cultural taboos, and limited access to services and information. PPFA's approach to young people is unique. We believe that to prevent unintended pregnancy and STIs, young people need both information and services provided in their environment. As a result, all the youth projects we support provide information and services, such as contraceptives (including condoms), pregnancy and STI testing, and counseling, directly to youth in places where they congregate. Most of our projects use a peer education approach in which young people provide their peers with both information and contraceptives.

Last year, we continued our efforts to reach young people in some particularly challenging environments. In the Philippines, where the government opposes modern family planning, we expanded a program to reach young people with sexual health information and contraceptives in poor urban areas, as well as rural farming communities. Given the government's unwillingness to make effective, low-cost contraception available, a critical component of the program is providing contraception directly to young people in their neighborhoods and villages through peer educators.

In Guatemala, our partner organization, Tan Ux'il, a community organization based in the northern region of Petén, provides sexuality education and services to adolescents through peer education, street theater performances, and a radio show run by and for young people. In order to generate income to support these activities, Tan Ux'il runs a pharmacy that provides contraceptives and other pharmaceuticals to adolescents in a friendly, nonjudgmental way.

In India, where the median age of marriage is just 16, our youth projects use the traditional pre-wedding/newlywed parties held in honor of nearly or newly married couples to encourage them to delay childbearing until the woman is at least 18. PPFA-supported outreach workers attend these parties to congratulate couples and offer entertainment, such as a song or short play, with a positive sexual health message. Through this exchange, outreach workers establish relationships with the couples and provide them with family planning information and supplies on an ongoing basis.

"Because of this [youth] program, I had the confidence to ask my parents to let me continue studying. As a result, I have stayed in school instead of getting married and having babies." 
          — Participant in PPFA's youth program, West Bengal, India

Advocacy to Expand and Protect Reproductive Rights

Recognizing the tremendous impact laws and policies have on health, PPFA supports organizations around the world that advocate for policies that promote women's health. Our partners use a variety of tactics to raise awareness and support for sound women's health policies among both the public and policymakers.

We cannot secure reproductive rights worldwide without a supportive political and social climate in the United States. However, the current administration has exerted a strong negative effect on reproductive health globally through restrictions on U.S. funding, its influence on policymaking organizations such as the United Nations and World Bank, and its support for programs that intentionally restrict access to reproductive health services. Our partners in developing countries experience the harmful effects of current U.S. policies and, for this reason, PPFA is committed to advocating for U.S. policies that promote women's health and safety.

In Trinidad and Tobago, we are supporting a grassroots women's rights group — Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE) — in its efforts to reform this island nation's antiquated abortion laws, which lead to approximately 19,000 unsafe abortions each year.

In Kenya, where abortion is legally restricted yet widely practiced and often unsafe, PPFA is assisting an alliance of local medical associations, lawyers, activists, and reproductive health organizations that are working to change policies related to reproductive health and abortion.

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