Unsafe abortions cause high maternal death rate in Sierra Leone

Women in Sierra Leone are dying from unsafe abortion methods as President Ernest Bai Koroma refused to sign a law legalising abortion in the West African country.

Sierra Leone's parliament has twice passed a bill that would allow women to terminate a pregnancy up to 12 weeks. 

But the bill has failed to become a law and it's been held up by religious groups who oppose it. 

Charles Vandi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children's Affairs said the religious people opposes abortion as they say abortion is like killing, adding that but social experts say a woman who is raped or gang-raped will suffer another trauma when she allows that pregnancy. 

"We have to put all of these debates on the table and see where we can find a compromise," Vandi said.

A 2013 report by the Ministry of Health and non-profit organisation IPAS, said Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality and unsafe abortions account for 10 percent of those deaths.

"I've had a few cases of women who - in fact one of the cases, she was a student and she had an unsafe abortion. She was admitted with bleeding. When I was actually going to see her and she was in a very bad way and she died," said Dr Rowland Taylor, a Gynaecologist.

TRT World's Caitlin McGee reports from Freetown, Sierra Leone.