Bladder and Rectovaginal fistula
At the same age that Swiss girls start their final years in school or begin an apprenticeship and experience their first romances, thousands of young women, especially in Africa, already have had to live through terribly painful labour without any medical help.
The results of such births are obstetric trauma, which are catastrophic for the woman concerned. Aside from the pain caused by the constant infection of her genital areas, the mother, who must also cope with the loss of her child, is generally abandoned by her husband, shunned by her village and often cast out. The condition is often misinterpreted as a sexually transmitted disease for which the woman herself is blamed.
WHO reckons that 2 million women in Third World countries currently suffer from childbirth injuries, and that the number increases by 100’000 each year. Poverty, malnutrition, hard physical labour, lack of education, too few health centres, long distances, lack of transportation, marriage and circumcision of young girls, discrimination of women are all factors that have something to do with obstetric fistulas.
In many Third World Countries, the woman’s role is to satisfy the sexual needs of her husband, to give birth to children, and to do the hard work in the house and in the fields. Childbirth injuries make it impossible for a woman to fulfil these duties, thus her self-respect and self-confidence are destroyed. The mere right to exist in village society is questioned.
