An estimated 2 million women worldwide suffer with obstetric fistulas. A fistula is a hole in the reproductive tract where tissue has broken down due to obstructed or prolonged labor cutting off blood supply to the area. Fistulas are more likely to develop if a woman has a small pelvis, as is the case when she is malnourished or forced to carry a child at a young age. For these reasons, obstetric
fistulas are more common among impoverished, uneducated, child brides. Often, a woman labors for several days without medical help because her husband does not deem her worth the trip to the hospital. The majority of the time, after days of suffering and pushing without help, the baby is stillborn. Depending on the nature of the fistula, the woman is often left leaking urine and f***s uncontrollably down her legs. The leaking, coupled with her inability to carry a child, causes her husband to divorce and exile her. Too often, her father will not welcome her back home because a fistula is considered to be the woman’s fault, and to have a fistula is to be unclean and cursed. These women are isolated from their communities and many leave school due to shame and inability to pay school fees. Gynocare Fistula Center, in Eldoret, Kenya, mercifully provides surgeries to fix the fistulas. However, even after the surgery a woman is left with no skills, no money, and deep emotional trauma and shame related to the fistula. Founded in 2012 as A Little 4 A Lot, Beyond Fistula provides life skills counseling and training programs in economically relevant vocations to outfit the survivors with marketable skills. The women then have a ticket back into the communities that exiled them, as well as feeling empowered, proud, and hopeful for the future. As our sewing instructor Ann Ojina says best, as a fistula survivor herself, “I can sew clothes and get my own income, which I can use to pay school fees for my child, so she doesn’t have to go through what I went through.”
Join Beyond Fistula and be a part of helping these young women in our global village! Click the link to donate and get involved now: www.beyondfistula.org/donate
