Each year, more than 2% of women of reproductive age in Ukraine experience an unintended pregnancy, and the United Nations’ sexual and reproductive health agency expects this number to go up as a result of the country’s ongoing war with Russia.
An estimated 265,000 women were pregnant in Ukraine when the war started in late February. Of those, 80,000 are expected to give birth within three months, according to the United Nations Population Fund.
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The agency expects that the share of unintended pregnancies will go up, as has been the case in other conflict situations where access to health services and contraceptives is often disrupted and where sexual violence increases.
In its latest annual report, UNFPA estimates 121 million unintended pregnancies occur each year globally. The agency defines an unintended pregnancy as a “pregnancy that occurs to a woman who was not planning to have any (more) children, or that was mistimed, in that it occurred earlier than desired.” The definition applies regardless of the outcome, whether the pregnancy ended with abortion, a miscarriage, or an unplanned birth.
“There's no way of knowing how many unintended pregnancies are driven by conflict. But we know that vulnerabilities greatly escalate in times of conflict,” UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem told Devex.
“We see this in the high proportion of displaced women who report experiencing sexual violence. We see it in the high proportion of maternal deaths – more than 50 per cent – that take place in humanitarian and fragile settings. And we see it on the ground, when our colleagues provide services to survivors of rape and antenatal care to women and girls who were not planning on becoming pregnant amid catastrophe,” she wrote.
In Ukraine, Kanem said health centers are already running “dangerously low” on lifesaving reproductive health supplies due to logistics issues and transportation disruptions. This means health centers don’t often have the medicines and the supplies needed in case of complications during pregnancy or childbirth.
She said UNFPA has shipped more than 13 metric tons of reproductive health supplies, medicines, and equipment to the country. This is to support service provision at health centers in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia and to cover the needs of around 500,000 people. The supplies include contraceptives, medicines for the management of obstetric emergencies, and treatment for the clinical management of rape, ensuring that health facilities are equipped and prepared to care for rape survivors.
Kanem said the agency is also supporting hotlines that survivors of any form of gender-based violence can call for support. Jaime Nadal, UNFPA’s representative in Ukraine, said in early March that only 29 of the 65 UNFPA-established facilities in the country catering to survivors of gender-based violence are operational. He said the agency was concerned about how women who experienced gender-based violence were accessing services in areas where UNFPA has lost contact with its facilities.
Ukraine officials have accused Russian soldiers of committing rape and sexual assault in Ukraine.
“The United Nations has not, to my knowledge, been able to independently verify reports of rape in this war. This doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. We know too well that many armed conflicts around the world have been accompanied by sexual violence,” Kanem said.
“Let us be very clear: every case of rape is one rape too many,” she added.
About the author
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
