Hundreds of thousands of women are plagued by Vesicovaginal fistula.
90% of these women are in Africa, and especially Northern Nigeria.
25% of the known cases of vesicovaginal fistula is amongst the child brides.
Globally about 14 million girls are married off before their 18th birthday and many of the girls are as young as age 9 years.
Many are hopeless as they have been abandoned by the very men and their families who put them in this condition.
Some have been cured while many others wait in hope as they go through the different stages of the restorative surgery that they will one day be dry again.
Vesicovaginal fistula is often caused by prolonged obstructed labour. This occurs commonly in cases of child/teenage pregnancy due to the small size of the mother's pelvis, which causes the obstruction when the head of the fetus is trying to come out through the vagina.
This prolonged obstruction caused by the head of the fetus, causes the compression of the vagina wall and the wall of the bladder, such that they rub against each other.
The resulting prolonged friction causes the walls to thin out and eventually fall off if adequate measures are not taken to prevent this.
This results in the creation of a hole/passage that connects the vagina and the bladder, which is known as the vesicovaginal fistula.
Hence, the victim then begins to leak urine.
In some cases it could be as bad as to result in the creation of a hole even in the rectum.
In this case the girl involved not only leaks urine but faeces!
This obviously is a man made problem and can be avoided or stopped!
In some cultures, for example; amongst the Hausas in Northern Nigeria, girls are often married off before they experience their first menstrual period.
It is expected that the girl child should experience menarche in her husband's house!
At a tender age, when she should still be cared for and watched over by her parents, she is given off in marriage to some man, who could be twice her age or more and may also already have other wives.
It is believed that a husband should be old enough to be one's father.
The girl finds herself in a rivalry position with one or more senior wives who could even be as old as her own mother or older.
She is mentally, psychologically, socially, economically and physically Ill prepared for marriage, sex, pregnancy and motherhood.
She is however forced into it and absolutely has no say in the matter.
It is considered a taboo for a girl to refuse the marriage arrangement made for her by her parents/family.
Many of these young girls don't even know what love means neither do they find it's meaning in these loveless unions.
Many of them are also exposed to other obstetric complications that follow teenage pregnancy.
Research has shown that girls between age 15 and 20 years are twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications during childbirth than those in their 20s. And those under the age of 15years are 5 times more predisposed.
Also children born to girls under 18 years are more likely to die before their first birthday than those born to women greater than age 19 years.
According to Shadia a nurse who told me her story.
She feels that her first sexual encounter with her husband was rape.
After decades of being in this marriage, she says bitterly that she has not grown to love the man she is married to (like some say) and was only tricked into marrying him by her family at a tender age.
No one explained sex to her before she encountered it and her first menstrual experience happened after her marriage to this man.
Thankfully she did not experience prolonged obstructed labour as she luckily had access to a good clinic that was being run by the Catholic Church in those days.
Many cases of vesicovaginal fistula may have even been prevented if these girls had access to quality health care.
Many of them live in villages that are far from good health care services and are taken to traditional birth attendants or old women to assist them deliver.
Some experience obstruction for more than 3 days and the fetus dies before help comes along.
They are only helped to seek superior medical attention when it is clear that the girl may loose her life in the process or the child dies, stuck inside of her.
This is a serious problem and we need to stop the child bride culture globally.
However, acccording to UNICEF, out of the 10 countries globally with the highest rates of child marraige, 9 are in Africa!
Niger,Chad and Malawi top the list.
Some efforts have been made, however it has not yielded the much needed results.
Community enlightenment programs in the regions involved, will go along way to help curb this evil.
The child act law passed in Nigeria in year 2003 has not been able to curb this evil in the Northern regions where their senators are marrying teenagers.
This is a shout out to all and sundry and the International community as a whole to rise up against this menace.
Gender equity cannot be attained if this is not curbed.
These girls are denied their rights to be educated so as to be equipped to better face the challenges of today and later tomorrow’s world.
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