Early child marriage a major cause of fistula among young girls, said Dominica Idwa, Acting Director-General of State Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare in Eastern Equatoria State.
She discloses that the ministry and its partners has developed a national plan to end early child marriage in communities by 2030.
“The state ministry of gender and partners for child protection are working very hard to end child marriage, working on these strategies the ministry of Gender at the national level have develop the national action plan to end child marriage that started and it will end in 2030 because one of the disadvantages of this child marriage is the fistula itself”, Idwa reveals.
Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Torit State Hospital, Dr Abdumoi Ettoro says fistula occurs to women during delivery time in a situation where the pelvis of a woman is tight making it impassable for a baby to pass through.
“Fistula when dealing with women we have two types of fistula, one is called the obstetric fistula mainly happen to a women during the delivery, fistula is a communication between the renal system including the bladder and the genital tract, so what happen is that there will be a hole which is forming between the bladder and vagina, so the urine instead of coming through the normal opening of the urethra it will be coming through the vagina. This is happens during the delivery when the head is too big to come through the pelvis or when the pelvis of the woman is very tight”, he explains.
A fistula survivor, who prefers to be anonymous, says the condition has made her not to associate with friends because at all times she feels embarrassed.
She urges her fellow girls to say no to early marriages.
“The place we come from is too far, we spent four days in the village and the fourth day we reached here and I was taken to the hospital and I was operated on. The first operation that I had urine was not coming out but the second operation is when the urine comes out, urine that flows continuously makes me not to play together with my friends, I feel ashamed of this flow of this urine, there are a lot of things even the tube is paining me a lot. I’m telling my friends who are outside there that you should not also get this disease that I’m having, you should abstain yourself from husbands, you should not be like me”, she elaborates.
An obstetric fistula occurs when a mother has a prolonged, obstructed labor, but doesn’t have access to emergency medical care, such as a C-section. She often labours in unbearable pain for days.