Our Mission
A Way Back to Dignity and Self-Esteem
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to suffer a complicated birth without medical assistance? In pain, exhausted, and aware that your child is already dead and that you too will soon die. - Every day 1,000 young women still die from complications during pregnancy and birth, just because they have no access to medical care.
- Source: UNFPA / Campaign to End Fistula, www.endfistula.org
Women who survive such births often suffer severe traumatic birth injuries, known as bladder and rectovaginal fistula. These are connections between the bladder or intestines and the vagina. They arise because the tissue dies during childbirth. As a result, the women can no longer control urine and/or defecation. Diseases and foul smell are the humiliating consequences. Those affected can no longer fulfill their functions in society. Many are divorced by their husbands and ostracized by family and society.
women's hope international (whi) believes that birth-related fistula can be cured and prevented. We also enable reintegration for women who cannot be completely cured.
- Operations
- Prevention (education, waiting areas, awareness)
- Reintegration
For the women and girls this help means a way back into life, a way back to dignity and self-respect.