Half of global pregnancies unintended

Nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended, the UN reproductive health agency said yesterday, warning that the war in Ukraine could further exacerbate what it called a "human rights crisis".

Out of 121 million unintended pregnancies every year -- 331,000 a day -- more than 60 percent end in abortion, almost half of them unsafe, the United Nations Population Fund said in a new report.

The UNFPA said the report was not about "unwanted babies or happy accidents", but how a combination of gender inequality, poverty, sexual violence, and lack of access to contraception and abortion robbed women of "the most life-altering reproductive choice -- whether or not to become pregnant".

UNFPA executive director Natalia Kanem said studies estimated that more than 20 percent of displaced women worldwide experience sexual violence.

The report said seven million women had to be hospitalised each year after unsafe abortions, which are one of the leading causes of maternal death.