This week a team from ASAP is heading to Nepal for a meeting on the Misoprostol Hotlines that operate across Asia. ASAP with Women on Web (and Waves) has played an important role in the inception and monitoring of these hotlines in Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh. WoW has also instituted an additional hotline in Thailand. This week the teams behind these hotlines come together for the first time. Follow our live blog and social media feeds for more news and some live action from the workshop.

In the meantime, let us take a quick look at Nepal’s abortion law and its history. Nepal stands out in South Asia for being one of the few countries with a liberal abortion law. Safe and legal abortions are available unconditionally in the first trimester, and offered in the second trimester to preserve the physical and mental wellbeing of a woman, and in the case of incest or rape.

But history shows that Nepal did not always have such liberal attitudes towards women who needed abortion. In fact, until 2002, the procedure was banned and criminalized in the country. If women were reported to have had abortions, they could be imprisoned for a year or two at least, and sometimes even for life.

But a series of studies undertaken in the 1990s showed that Nepal had a very high maternal mortality rate (870 deaths per 100,000 live births)  – one of the highest in South Asia. A large reason for this was unsafe abortion. Women’s rights activists, advocates for safe abortion, health care providers, civil societies and others took this issue up with the government of the country, and in 2002 a law was passed to decriminalize abortion.

Since decriminalization Nepal has reduced its maternal mortality by 78%. The Asia Safe Abortion Partnership documented this journey in a series of videos released in 2012 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the historic law.

In the first part of the series Dr.Anand Tamang, Director of the Center for Research on Environmental health and Population Activities in Nepal and currently also a steering committee member for ASAP, speaks about the landmark studies that CREHPA conducted in the 1990s.

The studies undertaken in 1991, suggested that unsafe abortion contributed to over 50% of the maternal deaths in the country. This goaded activists, doctors, researchers and lawyers to challenge the ban on abortions, and demand the right to safe abortion. In spite of their dedication and enthusiasm it took over 10 years for the law to be finally passed. The road to legalization of abortion in Nepal was long and bumpy. In the second part of our video series, Advocate Sapana Pradhan Malla recalls the legal struggle to make abortion legal in Nepal.

Legalisation has helped Nepal cut down the maternal deaths by 78%. Despite these legal situation, social circumstances still present barriers to safe abortion. The third part of our video series explains how. Dr. Indira Basnett, an ASAP Steering Committee member in 2012, and Director of Ipas Nepal talks about the challenges faced after legalization, and the continuing struggle to improve maternal health in Nepal. She explains how the country is working on making abortion accessible, affordable and acceptable for all women around Nepal.