YANAA Coordinator
– Shruti Arora from India has been on the Steering Committee of YANAA since its formation in 2019 and the coordinator of YANAA since August, 2021.
YANAA Steering Committee
– Wafa Mudawi Ibrahim is from the Royal College of Ob-Gyn of Sudan. She has been a Steering Committee member since the formation of YANAA in 2019.
– Lina Al-Hassany from Young Feminist Europe, The Netherlands, was a Steering Committee member from December 2021 through December 2023. She will be replaced by Nicole Moran of Young Feminist Europe in 2024.
– Dana Repka from the Youth Network for the Right to Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean and CLACAI, Argentina, joined in June 2023.
– Hasini Rupasingh from ARROW in Sri Lanka is the newest addition to the steering committee since October 2023 and replaced Indah Yasuri, who left ARROW in September 2023.
YANAA Advisor
Marge Berer, ICWRSA
Activities 2023
For 2023, YANAA had envisioned organising one online global meeting and at least two online regional meetings. We were successful in organising the regional meeting in Asia and the online global meeting. The Asia meeting was organised in collaboration with the YP Foundation and ARROW. It took place online on 28-29 August, 2023 and brought together 27 young activists from the region working on SRHR and safe abortion. A detailed meeting report can be found here: https://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/news/young-activists-for-abortion-asia-regional-meeting/
The one-day, online global meeting this year was on 8 December with the aim of exchanging our learnings with young activists from different regions. The meeting was planned and organised in consultation with all the YANAA committee members. It was attended by 22 young activists. We arranged an excellent panel of speakers, who shared their insights on youth-led organising and laws and policies that impact young people’s access to abortion. We arranged interpretation in Spanish as well. Translation was offered pro-bono by an independent consultant, Carmina Christen. A detailed meeting report can be found here: https://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/news/young-activists-for-abortion-global-meeting/.
The YANAA Committee decided not to organise the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional meeting. In the MENA region, abortion is highly restricted. Due to the criminalisation of sexual activity before marriage, unmarried young people in practice cannot access abortions legally. Social stigma is also very high, sexuality and abortion being the highest of taboos. One of the direct consequences of these legal and cultural restrictions on sexuality overall, and abortion particularly, is that fewer activists are keen to work on abortion issues, at least not openly. Furthermore, the current political sensitivities in the region have led to the shrinkage of civic space and increased attacks by governments on civil society organisations and groups. Activists in Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Lebanon and others are being targeted with harassment and intimidation and as part of growing wider anti-feminist propaganda and misogynistic hate speech. Given the risks associated with the current situation, supporters decided it was not possible to go ahead with the meeting.
28 September 2023
As part of the 28 September working group in both 2022 and 2023, YANAA introduced a youth-related sub-theme, to go with the main theme in the Call to Action. The main theme for 2023 was “Unstoppable movement” and the sub-theme was #YouthLeadership, which was used widely by us and others around the world to amplify the demand for safe abortion for young people and women.
YANAA members
In 2023 there were a total of 176 members, compared to 128 members in 2022. The members included organisations and individuals from 39 countries.
Social media
Instagram: 680 followers
Twitter (X): 876 followers
Threads: 80 followers
Social media post-impressions 2023:
January: 1,470
February: 1,417
March: 1,828
April: 751
May: 1,273
June: 766
July: 781
August: 2,080
September: 4,840
October: 988
November: 477
December: 425
Fiscal sponsorship of the Campaign and YANAA
Promsex informed YANAA they will withdraw fiscal sponsorship of ICWRSA and YANAA at the end of 2023. YANAA therefore looked for a new fiscal sponsor. We reached out to seven supportive NGOs and received three positive responses. Based on several meetings with them, we have decided to formalize an agreement with TICAH, Kenya for them to take on the role of YANAA’s fiscal sponsor and manage our funds. We also raised funds for 2024-25. Fos Feminista has expressed interest in supporting our work between 2024 and 2025. We are in the process of formalizing the grant agreement with Fos Feminista.
Report by:
Shruti Arora
