Sexual Behaviour and Emergency Contraception in Africa

Agnes Adjamagbo, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
Nathalie Bajos, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM)

Since 2004 the European Commission is financing a comparative study on Emergency Contraception in Africa in 4 capitals of Africa: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Morocco and Senegal. The main objective is to examine whether EC may complement or replace other medical contraceptives in African context. We specifically study the situations in which the use of EC is particularly adapted, and the specific obstacles to its use. Data consist on in-depth interviews conducted with 50 women, 25 men, aged 18-35, users and non-users of EC. The sample is designed according to sociodemographic characteristics: social class, level of education, marital status. We postulate that contraceptive failure is embedded in the articulation of conflicting social logics which depend simultaneously on reproductive and sexual norms and gender relations. Preliminary results show that contraceptive failures occur in specific situations and that the use of EC is influenced by pre-existing experience of modern contraception and beliefs associated to that use.