The Nigerian-born founder of Culture of Life Africa makes her case in a new documentary, Strings Attached, which she previewed for Canadian Parliamentarians April 18. The screening was co-sponsored by Conservative MPs David Anderson and Harold Albrecht and Campaign Life Coalition.
“It broke my heart when I found where the money from the wealthy western world is being used on the continent of Africa,” Ekeocha told the gathering on Parliament Hill.
Ekeocha said she hoped the documentary would move people to “act against the injustices that are happening all over Africa.
Strings Attached will have its official June launch in the United Kingdom, where Ekeocha now lives. The film follows Ekeocha in visits to African countries where abortion is illegal, to talk to women who have had abortions offered by an international abortion provider in contravention of the law. She also speaks to women who have been given long-acting contraceptives, either IUDs or injections, that have caused serious side-effects.
The documentary also showed how multi-million dollars in aid gets funnelled to Africa through international abortion providers. Ekeocha said more aid money is going towards population control services in Africa than towards education or health care.
Women who do not have regular access to a doctor are having IUDs put in that are left for years, causing infections, the documentary claims. Some contraceptive drugs that are injected or implanted under the skin also have side-effects, including vaginal bleeding, headache and loss of libido.
The documentary examined how some countries have joined an international campaign led by Dutch politician Lilianne Ploumen to fill the funding gap created when U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the policy of not funding overseas abortion. The documentary notes Canada under Justin Trudeau pledged $650 million over three years towards abortion and reproductive rights.
In the documentary, Ekeocha cites statistics showing most people in western countries do not want to fund abortion overseas, yet their governments have put millions of dollars towards contraception and abortion services in Africa that the African people have not requested.
“Abortion is not the solution Africans are asking for,” she says.
“African countries could legislate to legalize abortion but continue to hold the view of the human person that rejects abortion,” the documentary says, noting abortion is illegal or highly restricted in most African nations.
Education is a lifeline out of poverty and Africans would be better served to be given an education so they can read the inserts in the box of contraceptives and decide they would rather not take the risk, it says.