Asiya Abubakar’s dream took her beyond her little village in Dawakin Kudu , in one of the 44 local government areas that make up Kano State. She loved western education and always wanted to speak the English language and one day become a teacher or some other professional. But her parents had their own dreams too. They wanted to see their favourite daughter get married and bear children and live a responsible life in her husband’s house. But neither Asiya nor her parents are living their dreams today.

Asiya was given out in marriage immediately after her first menstruation at the age of 14. She had just completed primary two when she was married off by her parents to a man who sells firewood at the village market. She had her first pregnancy at 15 and never went for any antenatal care.

When the labour pangs started, her mother became the midwife that was to oversee her delivery. But for two days, the poor girl was in painful labour and the baby refused to come out. On the third day, she was rushed to the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital in Kano,a driving distance of about one hour. By the time she was delivered of the baby, she had developed Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) and had started leaking urine. Of course, she had a still birth.

When ICIR met her at the specialists’ hospital on April 10, Asiya, now 20 years, was in the hospital for her second delivery, and another fistula surgery. She had gone back home after her first surgery five years ago, but took in again last year. This time she went for ante natal care in the Primary Healthcare Centre in Dawakin Kudu up till her due date.

“But my parents and husband asked me to deliver at home and hired a traditional birth attendant in the community,” she explained while sitting on the hospital bed, with a rubber tube(catheter) extending from her virginal area into a urine bag tucked inside a bowl under the bed.

As with the first pregnancy, she went through a prolonged labour for more than 24 hours before she was brought to the hospital where doctors again found she had developed another fistula and had a still birth too. She had a successful operation and was awaiting discharge when ICIR met her.

Amiru Imam, the Surgeon who operated on her, told the reporter that Asiya could have been saved from another VVF if she had been brought to the hospital earlier. “She could have been delivered through a caesarean section and mother and child could have been ok,” he lamented.

Murja Mohammed, 35, presents a different but locally familiar face of VVF. A Kano based NGO known as Voice of Widows Association of Nigeria (VOWAN) had arranged the meeting with her in an office on Maiduguri Road Kano. She travelled from her village at Rehaza in Tudun Wada Local Government Area of Kano. As she stepped into the office, flies swarmed around her and the nose could perceive a stench. She seemed accustomed to the company of flies as she settles down for the interview without a bother.

“What are these flies doing here,” the reporter asked innocently in Hausa. “It’s because of my sickness,” she explains with a little dry smile on her face. She had a VVF operation at 15, also a year after marriage due to prolonged labour at home. Since then she has been in and out of hospital for the past 20 years.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/investigation-in-spite-of-better-access-to-vvf-treatment-more-women-in-nigeria-still-suffer-from-the-disease/