Thiri’s heart started pounding and her whole body shook after she swallowed the final dose of pills that would end her unwanted pregnancy in a Yangon hotel.
Her boyfriend had abandoned her after finding out she was pregnant – a familiar story in Myanmar, where many consider women “ruined” if they have sex before marriage.
My heart was beating very fast [after taking the final dose] and I was trembling all over ... then the bleeding started and I had a pain
With no other option in sight, she joined the hundreds of thousands of women in the country who risk their lives every year seeking out illegal backstreet abortions.
“My heart was beating very fast [after taking the final dose] and I was trembling all over ... then the bleeding started and I had a pain in my stomach,” 28-year-old Thiri, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said. “Now I worry about my womb, about whether I can get pregnant.”
Abortion is banned in Myanmar unless a woman’s life is at risk and doctors who defy the law can face up to 10 years in jail.
Even talking about sex is taboo in the Buddhist-majority country, where there is no proper word for vagina in the Burmese language spoken by most people.