Premarital sexual relations are becoming more common in Africa, a trend which is especially prevalent in urban settings. Although unmarried youth increasingly use condoms, many studies highlight considerable unmet contraceptive needs in this population subgroup. This article is based on...

Data on abortion in sub-Saharan Africa are rare and non-representative. This study presents a new method to collect quantitative data on clandestine abortion, the confidants method, applied in 2001 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Preliminary qualitative work showed that individuals are aware of...

Conventional analyses of the obstacles to contraceptive use in Africa focus on the social value attributed to high fertility, the fear of side effects and problems of accessing contraception. This article studies the range of situations that can lead to unplanned pregnancy and aims to identify...