Critics hit out at ‘dire’ situation in the country which has the strictest laws around abortion in western Europe
Rights campaigners have affixed lockboxes containing abortion pills to sites across Malta, in a campaign designed to highlight the country’s near-total ban on abortion.
The 15 black boxes aim to provide practical help to women grappling with the EU’s strictest abortion laws; anyone who is less than nine weeks pregnant and in need of an abortion is invited to send an email to obtain the location and codes to access the pills.
In the first eight days of the campaign, 16 women were in touch, hinting at an unmet demand for the procedure in the southern European country, said Rebecca Gomperts of Women on Waves, the Netherlands-based charity behind the campaign.
“It’s just archaic, in that sense, compared with the rest of Europe,” she said. “It’s such a violation of women’s rights that’s still happening there.”
