Almost $10m worth of contraceptives set to be torched by US as part of cuts to foreign aid
The products, which include contraceptive pills, implants and IUDs (intrauterine devices or coils) and have already been paid for by US taxpayers, are being sent to a specialist facility to be incinerated, at an additional cost of $167,000.
That's despite offers from charities including MSI Reproductive Choices and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to take on the costs of donating the contraception.
The Belgian ministry of foreign affairs had also said it was, 'exploring all possible avenues to prevent the destruction of these stocks, including their temporary relocation'.
A ministry spokesperson said the department had acted as soon as the plans to destroy stocks of contraception came to its attention – including sending formal diplomatic representations to the US embassy.
French member of parliament Soumya Bourouaha asked in an official question on Monday for the prime minister to, 'do everything possible to save these contraceptive stocks and deliver them to the populations who need them'.
However, the negotiations faltered, The Independent understands. The supplies are understood to now be in the process of being transferred between the two countries.
Unintended pregnancies in countries with high maternal mortality and no access to safe abortion can be a death sentence. Research by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research group, has found the $600m spent on family planning overseas by the US government last year prevented 34,000 maternal deaths and over five million unsafe abortions.
The contraception was purchased under a contract managed by development firm Chemonics, which has been partly cancelled as part of the Donald Trump's deep cuts to foreign aid.
Two family planning charities said they had been told by representatives of the project that the destruction of contraceptives was part of an effort to save money, despite the fact the supplies have already been paid for.
MSI's associate advocacy director Sarah Shaw said: 'This isn't about government efficiencies. This is about exporting an ideology that's harmful to women.'
To give one example, she said, 'the annual contraceptive bill for Senegal for the entire country is $3m dollars a year'.
'So the contents of that warehouse could have met all of Senegal's contraceptive needs for three years. And instead we're going to see massive shortages.
'We're going to see Senegalese women dying of unsafe abortion, girls having to drop out of school,' she said.
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