Not our tradition – Onesi says no to abortion

TUYEIMO HAIDULA

ONESIThe community of Onesi in the Omusati region is not in favour of legalising abortion because their tradition does not allow it.

Speaking at the public hearings on abortion currently ongoing in Omusati, people said legalising abortion would “corrupt the Namibian nation”.

The hearings are being held by the parliamentary standing committee on gender equality and social development.

Namibia is debating the legalising of abortion. In all of sub-Saharan Africa, abortion is legal only in South Africa. However, the number of unsafe abortions on the continent is mind-bogglingly high: every year, there are over six million unsafe abortions conducted in Africa, in which about 30 000 women die from the procedure.

Unsafe abortions are among the leading causes of death for women admitted to hospitals around much of the continent, statistics of the World Health Organisation show.

Need young workers

Andreas Hamunyela, chairperson of the Uukolonkadhi Traditional Authority, said at the public hearing that their tradition does not allow abortion.

“We are old. We need young ones to come and take over responsibility or to have people to send around for house chores. Also, if they remove pregnancies schools will close down because where will the young ones come from?” he said.

He also said if women don’t want to get pregnant they should use condoms or go for family planning.

The Onesi police station commander, Warrant Officer Jeremia Kamati, said they do not have statistics on illegal abortions but as far as he can remember they recorded only one case in 2011.

Kamati said they do not support abortion because “there will be no order and the country will be on auto pilot as leaders will fail to manage its people. Namibia is not ready to deal with this. We are not ready and should wait for the next generations because we do not understand the country’s laws”.

He also said Namibian schools would not be able to enrol new leaners as the population would decrease.

Andreas Amukwa, headman for Oshitumbe, said abortion would not be allowed in their constituency because the women “would be punished”.

Amukwa said women used to be burned to death if they fell pregnant before marriage in the older days and they would seek refuge at Uukolonkadhi and they were assisted.

“We cannot change our minds now and agree to abortion when we helped people save their babies those days,” he said.

Amukwa said women who terminate pregnancies have no worth and some become infertile when the procedure is not done correctly. This, he said, means it should not be done in the first place.

Onesi constituency councillor Festus Petrus said the Uukolonkadhi Traditional Authority speaks against abortion because it is not allowed in their tradition.

Petrus said they would not allow abortion to be legalised because they are taking into consideration the Namibian population.

“Currently we stand at 2.5 million. That is very low. Now if we allow abortion to be legalised, will the population ever increase? It will decrease. There are those who already practice unsafe and illegal abortion under trees and behind closed doors,” he said.

Petrus said allowing abortion to be legalised would not work as everyone would have access to it.

“A nation without a young generation is not growing. If we allow this to be legalised in 2022, how is Namibian life going to be after 100 years? We want the population to increase. We are totally against that one,” he said.

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