According to campus policy, she could have been expelled from her university if she had kept the baby. According to the laws of her country, Indonesia, she did not have the right to have an abortion. To her religious Muslim family, sex outside of wedlock and pregnancy meant shame and humiliation. Hudaya then did what millions of women around the world do in her situation, resorting to a clandestine abortion, without anesthesia or analgesics. She went into debt to pay for it and thought she would die.
She entered a serious depression, dropped out of university, was abandoned by her boyfriend, and felt guilty and ashamed for years. Four years later, in , she created a blog and decided to share her story. Exchanging similar experiences with other women offered comfort and motivated her to start a counseling service for post-abortion syndrome, with a help hotline. After a few years, Samsara became the first organization in Indonesia to offer direct, impartial and complete information on unplanned pregnancies, guiding women through their options: have the child, offer the child for adoption, or have a safe abortion.
In addition to the hotline, Samsara has websites, apps, and an online chat platform in which consultants, trained according to the protocols of the World Health Organization WHO , answer questions.
The hotline receives about calls per month, and the website has over 10, monthly visits. Although it does not directly provide abortions, the organization offers information on secure sources for the morning-after pill, how to use it, and how to deal with the possible side effects.
The counselors also refer women to doctors willing to perform surgical abortions. Hudaya also founded the Sexual and Reproductive Health School SRHS , where young people receive sexual education and can talk openly about the body, sex, and sexuality. Almost eight thousand people from all over Indonesia have taken part in the classes.
