Faced with an unintended pregnancy, Lisa (not real name), 17, made a desperate choice to use unconventional methods to terminate it.
This was early 2025.
“I was raped,” she says. “I was afraid to tell my mother or go to the hospital to seek a safe abortion.”
Lisa was afraid despite knowing the person who had violated her.
“I was terrified to tell my mother because I felt she wouldn’t believe me,” she says. “When I got home, I just went straight to bed and my mother didn’t question why I behaved strangely.”
A month passed and Lisa didn’t have her period and that was when she confided in a friend. They both agreed to meet a traditional healer who gave her concoctions to terminate it.
While she didn’t develop any complications, the fear Lisa had reflects that of other girls who are sexually violated, get pregnant and yet fail to go to hospitals to seek a safe abortion because the law that’s supposed to protect them hangs in the balance.
The other fear is how society will perceive them.
But sharing her thoughts on girls struggling to open up when violated, Monalisa Liabunya, who survived defilement at the age of six, says girls need to be encouraged to tell their stories.
“You do not have to feel alone because you are not alone. For rape to stop being casual or excused, we need to share our stories,” she says.
“That is how they will understand what rape actually means. I am not what happened to me; I am what I chose to become and I chose to rise.”
Monalisa says when she shares her story, she advocates for girls and women that their stories matter.
The law protecting sexually violated girls was initially supposed to be amended following an October 28 2025 High Court of Malawi ruling.
A particular component of the court ruling was a directive to review post-abortion care guidelines.
The ruling followed a court case by a 16-year-old who challenged a clinician’s decision at Chileka Health Centre for declining to terminate her pregnancy.
The minor had been defiled by her 60-year-old neighbour when she was just 13 years old. She sued Blantyre City Council, Malawi Human Rights Commission and the Attorney General.
And in his ruling, High Court of Malawi Judge Mike Tembo said Malawi’s legal framework, including the Gender Equality Act, permits access to safe abortion for minors who become pregnant as a result of sexual violence.
He directed government and gave a180-day ultimatum to revise the national clinical guidelines to reflect that legal position.
The ultimatum ended on April 26 2026 and, according to Attorney General Frank Farouk Mbeta, the draft laws are in place, but await other formal processes.
According to a nationwide perception survey by Afrobarometer, 50 percent of Malawians think abortion happens ‘often’, marking the highest proportion of 38 surveyed countries between January 2024 and September 2025.
Results of the survey, pertaining to Africans’ perception about sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), published on September 22 2026, indicate that 33 percent of respondents said they think abortion ‘occasionally’ happens while 15 percent think it rarely happens.
“Women and men offer almost identical assessments, but reports of frequent pregnancy terminations are higher among urban [26 percent] and young respondents [26 percent] than their rural [19 percent] and older [16-21 percent] counterparts,” reads part of the findings.
“Reports of abortion prevalence increase with respondents’ education level and experience of poverty. Estimates of pregnancy termination vary widely across countries, ranging up to 50 percent of Malawians who say they occur often in addition to 33 percent who say they happen occasionally.”
Three percent either refused or did not know whereas 12 percent of the respondents justified abortion due to economic hardship, and 87 percent were of the contrary perception.
Data from the survey also show that 92 percent of respondents were of the view that girls who become pregnant should be allowed to stay in school while eight percent were of the contrary opinion.
Ministry of Health and Sanitation director of reproductive health services Dr. Owen Chikhwaza says the government would only be interested if abortions are happening within the legal framework and not necessarily working on reducing an upward trend.
He says: “So, Ministry of Health would not be in the business of reducing or increasing abortions, but would ensure where the termination of pregnancy happens within the confines of the law, is done safe and not lead to a patient’s death or sickness.”
But Chikhwaza, however, says the Afrobarometer survey is not reliable enough to conclude or determine whether abortions are getting higher or lower in the country.
Section 243 of Malawi’s Penal Code prohibits safe abortion, but exempts a situation where the life or health of the mother is in danger.
It reads: “A person is not criminally responsible for performing, in good faith and with reasonable care and skill, a surgical operation upon any person for his benefit, or upon an unborn child for the preservation of the mother’s life, if the performance of the operation is reasonable, having regard to the patient’s state at the time, and to all the circumstances of the case.”
At the same time, the Gender Equality Act’s Section 19 entails the right to a safe and legal termination of pregnancy, especially in situations involving sexual violence.
And Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol, which Malawi is a signatory of, also recognises women’s right to medical abortion in instances of sexual assault, rape, incest and when pregnancy endangers the life or health of the woman.
A 2024 report from civil society organisations (CSOs) with interests in the health sector said government spends nearly K326 million yearly on post-abortion care services.
The CSOs—Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation and Nyale Institute—said one in every 29 girls and women die due to pregnancy-related complications, accounting for 18 percent of Malawi’s maternal deaths.
The Guttmacher Institute, a leading international research and policy organisation committed to advancing SRHR worldwide, estimates that 141 000 abortions occur in Malawi, translating to an estimated 31 to 38 abortions per 1 000 women between the ages of 15 to 49.
SRHR advocate Kenneth Mtago says to reduce the abortion burden, Malawi needs prevention over punishment.
“Prevent pregnancy by giving youth easy access to family planning and correct myths,” he says. “Strengthen post-abortion care to save lives.”
While stating that it would be difficult to interpret the outcome of the perception survey, Nyale Institute executive director Dr. Godfrey Kangaude says the opinion that abortions happen most in urban than rural settings might be due to dynamics.
He says: “It might be that, relatively, safe abortions happen most in towns than in rural areas where most are unsafe.”
