What You Need to Know
The Geneva Consensus Declaration and the Maputo Protocol create a complex landscape for abortion rights in Tanzania. While the Geneva Consensus promotes restrictive abortion policies, the Maputo Protocol obligates Tanzania to allow abortion under certain circumstances. This tension contributes to unsafe abortion practices and maternal health crises, highlighting the urgent need for legal reform to
Africa-Press – Tanzania. IN October 2020, a coalition of countries led by the United States under President Donald Trump unveiled the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family.
Though non-binding, the declaration sent a powerful political message…. ‘abortion should not be recognised as an international right and should not be promoted as a method of family planning’.
It reaffirmed national sovereignty over abortion laws and emphasised the inherent dignity of human life.
For many observers, the document marked a coordinated pushback against decades of global advocacy aimed at recognising access to safe abortion as an essential component of women’s health and human rights.
In Tanzania, where abortion laws are already among the most restrictive in Africa, the implications of such political signalling are not abstract. They intersect with a public health crisis that continues to claim women’s lives in silence.
At the same time, Tanzania is a State Party to the Maputo Protocol, formally known as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.
Unlike the Geneva Consensus Declaration, the Maputo Protocol is legally binding. It explicitly obliges governments to permit abortion in specific circumstances, including rape, incest and threats to a woman’s physical or mental health.
This dual global and regional landscape, one political, one legal, has created a tension that lies at the heart of the debate over women’s reproductive rights in Tanzania.
The result is a legal grey zone that fuels unsafe abortion and constrains comprehensive post-abortion care. Under Tanzania’s Penal Code, abortion is criminalised except when it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman.
This narrow exception excludes pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, severe foetal impairment and serious threats to a woman’s physical or mental health. The restrictive framework does not stop abortion; it simply pushes it underground.
“However, this strict legal framework has several implications that contribute to increased maternal deaths, where many women who seek abortions outside the legal framework may resort to unsafe methods, risking severe complications or death,” said Judge Mathew Mwaimu, Chairman of the Tanzania Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG), during the Tanzania Health Summit in Zanzibar some time back.
Judge Mwaimu noted that while the law contains certain exceptions in theory, its structure creates confusion.
“Those who procure abortion in dark alleys are not aware that there are no exceptions to the general rule, but when you look into the law itself, Article 150, 151 and 152, they create a situation as if there is no exception to the general rule,” he said.
This ambiguity has a chilling effect. Health providers, uncertain about legal protection, may hesitate to offer even lawful services.
Women, unsure of their rights, often avoid formal facilities altogether. Tanzania ratified the Maputo Protocol without reservations, signalling political will at the continental level.
Article 14 of the Protocol, often referenced in discussions about Section 230 in local interpretations, advocates for access to safe and legal abortion services in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest and where the woman’s health is at risk.
Section 219 emphasises the right to health and reproductive health services, calling on states to ensure access to family planning, information and education related to sexual and reproductive health.
Sections 150, 151 and 152 underscore the importance of eliminating discrimination, enacting protective laws and strengthening international cooperation.
“These sections, when brought together, enable the provider to translate them and give some room to give a chance to terminate a pregnancy,” says Dr Ahmed Makuwani, Director of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health at the Ministry of Health. Recognising the complexity of the legal language, the Ministry developed guidelines in 2015, followed by a revised version in 2020.
These guidelines aim to clarify when health providers may lawfully offer termination services, especially if the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life.
“We made the two guidelines to enable health providers to know exactly where they can give services to a woman to terminate her pregnancy, especially if the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman,” Dr Makuwani explained.
Yet guidelines are not laws. They operate within a Penal Code that remains unchanged. The Maputo Protocol’s provisions have not been fully domesticated into national legislation.
As a result, survivors of sexual violence and girls facing forced pregnancies still have no clear lawful avenue to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Judge Mwaimu acknowledged the gap.
“For someone who peruses the Maputo Protocol has to go all the way to Section 230 to find what they are looking for,” he observed, underscoring the difficulty of translating regional commitments into domestic clarity.
CHRAGG has initiated communication with the University of Pretoria to strengthen human rights reporting and build capacity around the African Charter and the Maputo Protocol.
“During the workshop, the Commission came up with an intention of revitalising the way on how to communicate with the government to ensure that the Maputo Protocol is domesticated,” he said.
Although Tanzania has not signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, its influence in global discourse cannot be ignored.
The Declaration asserts that abortion should not be promoted as a method of family planning, emphasises the inherent dignity of human life and insists that abortion laws should be determined by individual states rather than international bodies.
For countries already struggling to implement the Maputo Protocol, endorsement of such a declaration would deepen contradictions.
Several African nations that are parties to the Maputo Protocol have signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, placing themselves in a legally and morally conflicting position.
While the Declaration denies any international right to abortion, the Maputo Protocol explicitly recognises access under defined circumstances as a women’s human rights issue. If Tanzania were to align itself politically with the Geneva Consensus, the consequences would be profound.
It could embolden conservative interpretations of the Penal Code, stall efforts to domesticate the Maputo Protocol and further marginalise comprehensive post-abortion care within the health system. Political symbolism matters.
Even a non-binding declaration can shape donor priorities, legislative debates and administrative guidance.
It can legitimise narratives that frame abortion solely as a moral issue, side-lining its public health dimensions. Globally, unsafe abortion remains a leading cause of preventable maternal mortality, particularly in countries with restrictive laws.
In Tanzania, where access to safe services is constrained, the burden falls disproportionately on young women, poor women and survivors of sexual violence.
When legal avenues are blocked, women resort to unsafe methods, unqualified providers, harmful substances or self-induced procedures.
Complications range from haemorrhage and sepsis to infertility and death. Hospitals regularly treat women suffering from incomplete abortions, infections and uterine perforations.
Comprehensive postabortion care (PAC) is therefore essential. It includes emergency treatment of complications, counselling, family planning services and referrals.
However, stigma and legal ambiguity often undermine the quality and accessibility of PAC.
A health system that criminalises abortion while attempting to manage its consequences faces a paradox. Providers may fear legal repercussions. Women may delay seeking care, increasing the risk of fatal outcomes.
The result is a cycle of secrecy, stigma and preventable suffering. The Geneva Consensus Declaration’s emphasis on national sovereignty resonates with many governments. Yet sovereignty does not negate accountability to binding treaties.
By ratifying the Maputo Protocol, Tanzania accepted an obligation to align its national laws and policies with continental standards.
Failure to do so raises serious questions about compliance with African human rights commitments. Judge Mwaimu noted that adoption without reservations signified political will.
“If they adopt it without any reservations, then it means it was a political will from the government,” he said.
The question now is whether that political will translate into legislative reform. The tension between the Geneva Consensus Declaration and the Maputo Protocol is not merely theoretical.
It is reflected in hospital wards where doctors treat septic shock from unsafe abortions, in courtrooms where legal ambiguities persist and in the lives of girls forced to carry pregnancies resulting from rape.
Tanzania stands at a crossroads. It can continue to navigate a contradictory space, ratifying progressive regional treaties while maintaining restrictive domestic laws, or it can harmonise its legal framework with its human rights commitments.
Domestication of the Maputo Protocol would not amount to the wholesale liberalisation of abortion.
Rather, it would clarify and expand lawful grounds in line with continental standards, protect health providers and strengthen comprehensive post-abortion care. Public health evidence is clear…. restrictive laws do not eliminate abortion; they make it unsafe.
Political declarations, however symbolic, shape narratives and policies that influence whether women live or die. In the end, the debate is not only about sovereignty or ideology.
It is about whether Tanzanian women and girls, especially the most vulnerable, will have access to safe, lawful and dignified reproductive healthcare. The cost of inaction is measured not in legal texts, but in human lives.
In October 2020, the Geneva Consensus Declaration was introduced, emphasizing that abortion should not be recognized as a right. This declaration contrasts sharply with the Maputo Protocol, which Tanzania ratified, mandating access to abortion in specific cases. The conflicting frameworks create a legal grey area that complicates women’s reproductive rights in Tanzania, where existing laws are already among the most restrictive in Africa. The implications of these policies are profound, as they directly impact women’s health and safety, leading to increased maternal mortality rates due to unsafe abortion practices.
