Morning After Island

About the Work 13 years ago, Honduras became the only country in Latin America to ban the morning after pill. Already one of the most conservative countries in the region, this single act represented a massive step backwards for women’s rights and wellbeing, with predictable results: Since then, 330,000 underage girls have become mothers. Today, one out of every four Honduran women and girls will become pregnant before turning 18, fully half raped by the men closest to them. GE PAE is an NGO that has fought for over a decade to repeal the prohibition, facing serious headwinds: no media budget, no support from the private sector, zero institutionalized sexual health education , and a conservative national media allied with the same religious leaders that call them murderers. How could we provide a solution for desperate women, without risking their freedom? In the end, the insight was simple: if our rights are denied in our own homeland, why not go where no government or establishment has the power to stop us— international waters. So came the idea for Morning After Island. A platform to take the pill without fear of prosecution, to raise our voices, be seen and heard by the world, with no one to silence us. Where we could build support and pressure our government for change. We built the platform and scheduled regular voyages free of cost to any woman who needed the pill. We then produced the first short video with a female rights activist. Less than a week after launch, influencers from the US to Argentina to India were calling on their millions of followers to show their support. This initial virality earned coverage from CNN International; from there, the momentum became unstoppable. We’d achieved our main goal: this issue could no longer be silenced by traditional Honduran media or its government officials. The President invited GEPAE to a formal meeting on International Woman’s Day, where they discussed the issue of the morning after pill. Simultaneously, Congress met to discuss the many additional problems facing Honduran women. As a result, in October, the health minister announced that the use of the morning-after pill will be authorized for rape victims. https://tinyurl.com/mr3fmxn8