International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) celebrates role as champion for women and girls on the first anniversary of the SheDecides movement in Pretoria today.

Lucien Kouakou, IPPF Regional Director for Africa, addressed the SheDecides event as IPPF global champion.

“The SheDecides movement is a hugely positive initiative, a powerful call to action – through a global partnership to ensure girls and women are able to decide for themselves, freely, about their sexual lives.

The re-imposition of the global gag rule has represented the biggest challenge facing IPPF over the last year. When funding to sexual and reproductive health services is denied, women and girls bear the brunt. In hard-to-reach communities, and some of the most vulnerable groups in society, the impact is deeply felt.

Take the story of Palmira, a client who came through our Mozambican Member Association- Amodefa, now affected by the global gag rule.

Palmira is HIV positive. She lives with two sons, who are also HIV positive, and four grandchildren in a small house on the outskirts of Maputo. Her husband abandoned the family and Palmira was left to battle illness and raise the children on her own. Now, however, the nutritious food, medication and regular medical check-ups she receives as part of Amodefa’s homecare programme has given her a new lease on life. She plans for the future and has started subsistence farming again.

As a champion for people everywhere, we will not be held back.

Even at a time when some of IPPF’s Member Associations are facing losing up to 60 per cent of their operating budgets, we are proud to state loud and clear that the provision of rights-based, life-saving services cannot be stopped.

There is hope and solidarity from all corners of the world. We have seen a positive response from our major institutional donors, in part due to the momentum mobilised via SheDecides for which IPPF is a champion.

We are grateful for the pledges of increased support through the SheDecides movement from the governments of Belgium, Canada, Denmark and Sweden to help us overcome the negative impact of the global gag rule.

We stand for a world where every girl and woman can decide what to do with her body, with her life, and with her future.”