The Human Sciences Encounters in Phnom Penh

In Southern countries many women are still dying from illegal and harmful abortion practices. In some of these countries, access to the legal abortion pill is considered a progress towards women’s health and women’s rights. In Cambodia, one of these methods is commonly called the ‘Chinese pill’, a combination of mifepristone and misoprosol used for its contraceptive and abortifacient effects. This is one of the "non-registered" drugs by the Cambodian Ministry of Health. Chinese pills are sold in pharmacies but they can also be found in markets, often sold by street vendors, rural practitioners as well as DJs working in karaoke.

In 2010 after the Ministry of Health’s authorization, Medabon® was sold in pharmacies and in a limited number of health institutions. This pill that combines mifepristone and misoprostol is the product of a collaboration between a charitable organization headquartered in Bangkok and a pharmaceutical industry based in India. This presentation offers to analyze the complex trade-offs between the various actors at national and transnational levels that shape both the diffusion and the regulating processes of the abortion pill.   

Biodata : Dr. Pascale HANCART PETITET, PhD in Anthropology, is a Research Scientist at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) (UMI 233). She is specialized in the Anthropology of Health and has conducted various research projects in India, Cambodia and in Lao PDR since 2013. Her research sits at the intersections of human reproduction politics, practices, uses and transnational flows of biotechnologies, and social form of iniquity. She founded the HSEPP in 2008.

More : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hancart_Petitet_Pascale/publications