The High Court of Malawi has upheld a landmark ruling affirming safe termination of pregnancy as a legal right for minor survivors of violence in the country.

Justice M.A Tembo delivered the judgment while ruling on the refusal of Jenala Solomon, a clinician at the Chileka Health Centre in Malawi, to provide safe termination services to a 14-year-old survivor of sexual violence.

The case was jointly litigated by the Ahaki Institute, the Nyale Institute, and the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation under the Litigating Reproductive Justice in Africa programme.

In his ruling, Mr Tembo said denying a minor survivor of sexual violence access to safe termination of pregnancy constitutes a violation of reproductive-health rights protected under sections 19(1)(A), 19(2), and 20(1)(D) of the Gender Equality Act, which requires health officers to impart all necessary information for informed decision-making regarding reproductive health services.

The judge said compelling a child to carry an unwanted pregnancy conceived through violence amounts to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

He added that minor survivors of sexual violence possess an automatic entitlement to safe termination of pregnancy as long as it is established that conception resulted from a sexual offense.

Mr Tembo ordered Malawian Minister of Health Khumbize Chiponda to amend the standards and guidelines for Post-Abortion Care (2020) within 180 days.

He also directed her to insert explicit provisions mandating health providers to offer lawful termination to children and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence while mandating comprehensive training for all designated practitioners in the country to ensure consistent and rights-based implementation.

Afya na Haki, an African research and training institute in Uganda focused on advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, described the ruling as a threshold for reproductive-rights protection in Malawi, noting it situates safe abortion within the enforceable framework of the Gender Equality Act.

“The judgment establishes that pregnancy resulting from sexual assault and the age of the survivor inherently create medical and psychosocial risk, qualifying such pregnancies for lawful termination. It dismantles administrative hesitation rooted in fear of criminal liability and reframes reproductive-health access as a matter of right rather than discretion,” the Institute said in a statement on Tuesday.

While noting that the decision advances the jurisprudence of reproductive justice, the Institute said the ruling also closes the gap between restrictive colonial-era criminal provisions and contemporary human rights guarantees.