Maternal mortality Postpartum haemorrhage and obstetric fistula are two avoidable conditions that continue to kill and maim women in sub-Saharan Africa every year Atim (not her real name), from Nigeria’s southern state of Akwa Ibom, was barely a teenager when she was married off to a much older man. She would have preferred to have had a child when she was older, but that was completely out of her control and she found herself pregnant in the first year of her marriage. Her delivery was prolonged and difficult, which was further complicated by the fact that her hearing and speech…
Adie Vanessa Offiong
African women and girls in poor communities, forced to walk long distances to fetch water, run the daily risk of rape, beating and even death. It was a day like any other last December. Hasiya (not her real name) had to go to fetch water from the Uke River. It is the main source of water for many in the Uke Bus Stop community in Nasarawa State, in Nigeria’s middle belt region. But the 80-minute to-and-fro trip did not quite end like other days. The 16-year-old said, “I had gone out to fetch water in the evening. It was past…
