——————————————————————————–

Kumba is 20 years old. Three years ago, she carried a baby to full term, but a complicated labour resulted in the death of the baby. If that alone weren’t enough, Kumba was also left incontinent.

In the West African nation of Liberia and in other developing nations, pregnancy and childbirth can be hazardous to a woman’s health.

More than half a million women worldwide die each year from complications that occur during pregnancy and childbirth; 99 percent of those deaths occur in the developing world. And according to the Worldwide Fund for Mothers Injured in Childbirth, for every woman who dies, another 40 or 50 suffer serious injury.

One of these injuries is Vesico-vaginal fistula. Some two million women in the world carry the burden of VVF, incontinence. Most of these women are ostracized by their communities, not invited into community life because of their incontinence. They spend most of their waking hours washing their ever-soiled clothes.

Kumba came to a Mercy Ship on assignment in Liberia to receive free life-changing surgery. Two weeks later she was released, dry for the first time since she was 17 years old.

When a VVF has been repaired, it is dangerous for a woman to give birth again, as it’s likely that damage will be done again. The safest option is for them to have caesarean-sections-yet those cost $A100 each, an amount that is absolutely impossible for most Liberians to pay. So Mercy Ships instituted a partnership with a local mission hospital, pre-paying the cost of two c-sections for each woman.

As Kumba left the ship to go home, she was photographed for the identification card giving her this privilege.

***

Krubo developed a VVF when she was 16, a year before the war ended; she is now 20.

At 16, nine months pregnant and alone in the bush, Krubo went into labour. “Nobody there to do the work. So I did it myself,” she says. She was there, alone and in labour, for three days. When she finally gave birth, the baby was dead, and she’d developed a fistula.

Everything changed. She had to stop going to school, and became an outcast. She was devastated by her new life. “My friends did not used to come around me a lot. I just used to sit and cry, cry, cry,” Krubo says. “I just wanted to kill myself because every day I washing clothes. I tired of washing clothes.”

Two years ago, Krubo decided to come to the capital Monrovia to escape the fighting. She walked for two full weeks then finally took a car the rest of the way. The leaking was constant throughout the trip. The war ended, but Krubo’s struggle with VVF did not.

Her aunt heard about the Mercy Ship and brought her niece to a screening day on the ship. She received life-changing surgery.

Every VVF story is unique. In Krubo’s case, she’s one of very few women who have had another baby since “the problem” as most of them call it, started. Little Kolu is 10 months old.

“I tell God thank you, today I’m sitting here, and I’m not wet. I tell God thank you,” she says.

***

Tokpah is 64. During Liberia’s civil war, a group of fighters captured Tokpah. They decided not to kill her – just to brutalize her. The soldiers abused her sexually using sticks. Their inhumane treatment caused the fistula that would plague Tokpah for more than four years. Everyone but her children turned their backs on her. No one associated with her, except to call her names. This woman who clearly loves to be with people was ignored, ostracised. A son heard about Mercy Ships, and she received surgery to correct the damage.

She’d like to tell her story to the media. She would also like to speak to the people who mistreated her. A translator said Tokpah’s answer, full of grace, was, “She would embrace them because God made her to get healed.”

During a two-phase visit to Liberia during 2005 and 2006, nearly 200 women received free fistula surgeries. More than 900 people underwent reconstructive surgery for disfigurement, while 800 eye surgeries were performed and more than 15,000 dental procedures were completed. Other aspects of the assignment included health education, school renovation, water and sanitation projects, special women’s programs, agricultural training, establishment of town development associations, adult education, child development and church leadership.

Since 1978 Mercy Ships has taking the message of hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor… Visit http://www.mercyships.org.au

Founder and International President of Mercy Ships, Don Stephens, and wife Deyon recently visited Liberia in West Africa and met three women who had previously undergone surgery onboard the Christian charity’s hospital ship to repair fistulas resulting from complications in childbirth, a problem being described as the African Epidemic. These stories are similar to those of thousands and thousands of African women.