In a modest house on a red dirt road in Ota in Ogun state, Olayemi*, a 39-year-old auxiliary nurse, runs a small chemist shop. She treats common illnesses such as malaria and colds and sells painkillers, antidiarrhoeal medications and vitamins. For the past few years, she has also been selling packs of mifepristone and misoprostol, medicines included in the WHO essential medicines list to induce abortion safely.
Both medicines are legal in Nigeria, a country with one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, but only if used to save women’s lives during obstetric complications. Olayemi does not stock them in her shop; instead when a woman comes asking for help to end an unwanted pregnancy, she has them delivered. On average, she gets three such requests a month.
