Abortion Stigma
Stigma shames and silences women who seek abortions, as well as healthcare providers and others associated with abortion care. It can also contribute significantly to the incidence of unsafe abortion. Abortion stigma reinforces misconceptions that abortion is rare or that only “certain types of women” have abortions. However, our work around the world shows that abortion stigma is a global issue, affecting women in every country regardless of the legal status of abortion.
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At COHERINET, we are committed to understanding and reducing abortion stigma while building evidence on effective approaches to addressing it.
We have conducted research in Uganda to measure abortion stigma, abortion service uptake and used the findings to develop stigma-reduction programmes. We also provide training for healthcare professionals to help them address stigma surrounding abortion and strengthen their understanding of the legal status of abortion.
Attach Research and our research partners.
Abortion Values Clarification for Action and Transformation.
A Proven Approach: The World Health Organization recommends values clarification training as an approach for helping abortion providers address the role that abortion stigma plays in preventing people from accessing the care they need.
For almost a decade, COHERINET has conducted workshops across its 27 districts of operation, bringing together healthcare providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to reflect on their values and attitudes toward abortion and consider the consequences of limited access to abortion care.
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These Values Clarification for Action and Transformation (VCAT) workshops encourage participants to examine their assumptions and beliefs about abortion and reflect on their role in supporting safe access to abortion care.
The exercises help participants better understand the importance of abortion access and build greater confidence and comfort as advocates, healthcare workers, and community members who support abortion rights.
Access to Contraception.
Everyone deserves the freedom and ability to decide whether and when to become pregnant.
When people lack access to contraception and accurate family planning information, their ability to make informed choices and exercise control over their lives and futures is limited.
In Uganda, underserved communities face significant barriers to accessing modern contraceptive methods, including cost, limited availability of services, misinformation, provider bias, and gender inequality.
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When women and girls experience unintended or unwanted pregnancies, they may seek abortion services regardless of whether those services are legal or safe.
Evidence shows that improving access to contraception among women and girls in marginalized communities can significantly reduce unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and maternal deaths.
That is why COHERINET takes a comprehensive approach to reproductive healthcare, combining access to contraception and accurate family planning information with quality abortion care when needed.
Drop-In Centre
Our Drop-In Centre provides a safe and welcoming space where young people can:
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Access SRHR information -
Access Family Planning services
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Receive counseling and psychosocial support
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Obtain referrals
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Participate in health education sessions
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Engage with peer educators
Working with Men to Expand Access to Abortion Care
At COHERINET, we recognize that achieving meaningful and lasting change in reproductive health requires addressing the gender norms and power dynamics that can influence women’s ability to make decisions about their own health and wellbeing.
While we continue to empower women and girls with knowledge about their reproductive rights and connect them to essential SRHR services, we also recognize the importance of engaging men as partners in advancing gender equity and reproductive justice.
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Through our community-based work, COHERINET equips men with accurate information and creates opportunities for them to reflect on how their attitudes, decisions, and actions can either support or limit women’s access to reproductive healthcare.
COHERINET promotes men as allies, partners, family members, community leaders, and professionals who can contribute positively to informed reproductive health decisions.
Men can provide practical support, including assistance with transportation, childcare, or other needs, while also offering emotional support by listening to their partners and respecting their reproductive choices. At the same time, COHERINET addresses behaviours and social norms that can create barriers to care, including controlling reproductive health decisions, violence, and other forms of gender inequality.
To broaden this work, COHERINET engages men in traditionally male-dominated spaces, including the police force, male religious leaders, and groups of male community elders. Through dialogue, education, and advocacy, we challenge harmful gender norms, promote positive masculinity and gender equity, and encourage men to become champions for women’s and girls’ SRHR.
Through this approach, COHERINET is helping build communities where women and girls have greater agency, support, and freedom to make informed decisions about their reproductive health and access the services they need.
Aunt Kaki
Aunt Kaki is our confidential, stigma-free and youth-friendly Toll-free helpline that provides trusted Sexual and Reproductive Health information, referrals and support.
Services include:
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Family Planning information
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Referrals to health facilities
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Gender-Based Violence support
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Psychosocial support
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Youth guidance and Counseling referrals
Video Production
Through COHERINET TV, we produce educational and advocacy videos that promote Sexual and Reproductive Health awareness, gender equality and social justice.
Gender-Based Violence and Access to Care
Gender-based violence (GBV) places women and girls at increased risk of unintended pregnancy and other sexual and reproductive health challenges.
Survivors require timely, confidential, survivor-centred care tailored to their individual needs, including access to emergency contraception, abortion-related care, psychosocial support, protection, and other essential SRHR services.
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At COHERINET, we work to strengthen access to appropriate care for women and girls experiencing GBV while advocating for laws, policies, and community practices that prevent violence and enable survivors to fully exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Harnessing Digital Innovation to Expand Access to SRHR
COHERINET is harnessing the power of digital innovation to share accurate information and expand access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including abortion information and support.
Two key innovations are at the heart of this work: Aunt KAKI Toll-Free Helpline A confidential and accessible platform that brings trusted SRHR information, guidance, referrals, and community resources directly to people, wherever they are.
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COHERINET TV Through educational videos, podcasts, discussions, and advocacy content, COHERINET TV uses digital media to reach wider audiences with accurate, accessible, and empowering SRHR information.
Together, Aunt KAKI and COHERINET TV are helping bridge information and service-access gaps by using technology to connect more people with the knowledge, support, and resources they need to make informed decisions about their health and wellbeing.
Climate Change and Reproductive Justice
Climate change is one of the defining crises of our time, and its effects extend directly to people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
In Uganda, underserved communities heavily depend on subsistence farming as a primary source of livelihood. As climate-related disasters intensify across the country, homes, livelihoods, food and water sources, and personal safety are increasingly threatened.
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These environmental pressures are closely linked to gender-based violence and unintended pregnancies. At the same time, women and girls face an increased need for sexual and reproductive health services, yet access to these services often becomes more difficult during and after climate-related disasters. Ultimately, the climate crisis is a reproductive justice crisis. Our research in settings across Uganda shows how climate change can undermine people’s right to have a child, the right not to have a child, and the right to raise children in safe and healthy environments. At COHERINET, we work to ensure that sexual and reproductive health is integrated into climate-responsive solutions at every level, while ensuring that the people most affected are actively involved in building resilience within their communities.
Here’s What We’re Doing:
Working with Local Partners to Build Climate Resilience
Collaborating with community-based partners to strengthen locally led responses and resilience.
Responding to Climate Disasters
Supporting communities to maintain access to essential SRHR information and services during and after climate-related emergencies.
Centering Women’s Voices and Solutions
Ensuring women and girls are actively involved in identifying and shaping solutions to climate-related SRHR challenges.
Building the Evidence
Generating evidence and learning to better understand the relationship between climate change, gender, and reproductive health.
Advocating for Reproductive Health in All Climate Solutions
Advocating for SRHR to be recognized and integrated as an essential component of climate action and resilience planning.
Reproductive Justice
At COHERINET, we recognize young people as powerful advocates and key drivers of change in advancing their own health, rights, and reproductive justice. We center their voices and needs across our work, supporting young people to become peer educators, community advocates, and active participants in shaping youth-friendly SRHR services and policies.
Through youth engagement, education, advocacy, and community-led initiatives, COHERINET works towards a future where every young person has the knowledge, agency, and bodily autonomy to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and determine their own future.
International Campaigns
COHERINET participates in key international campaigns to raise awareness, amplify community voices, challenge harmful social and gender norms, and advance sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender equality, bodily autonomy, and reproductive justice. Through these campaigns, we bring marginalized communities, young people, healthcare providers, leaders, and partners together to promote informed choices, address stigma and discrimination, prevent gender-based violence, and strengthen access to essential SRHR services.
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Our campaign activities like community dialogues and repro-health parliaments, digital awareness and stakeholder engagement, help translate global calls for action into meaningful change within Ugandan communities.
10.Strengthening the Capacity of Health Professionals
Over the years, COHERINET has invested in strengthening the capacity of health professionals to provide quality, respectful, and rights-based sexual and reproductive health services. Through targeted training, capacity-building sessions, and continued engagement, we equip healthcare providers with the knowledge and skills needed to respond effectively to the SRHR needs of women, girls, adolescents, and other vulnerable communities.
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Our approach focuses on strengthening service provision, addressing misinformation and stigma, promoting client-centred and youth-friendly care, and improving linkages and referrals to essential SRHR services.
By building the capacity of frontline health professionals, COHERINET contributes to stronger health systems where individuals can access accurate information, quality services, and respectful care without stigma or discrimination.
A Safe, Confidential and Survivor-Centred Referral Approach
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At the centre of this ecosystem is the survivor, whose safety, dignity, rights, and healing remain the priority throughout the referral process and COHERINET is working to ensure that survivors and others facing GBV can access appropriate information, referrals, health services, protection, and legal support through safe, confidential, survivor-centred, and rights-based pathways.