Let us all help to wipe out fistula

Today is the International Day to End Obsteric Fistula. Significant gains have been made in improving sexual and reproductive health and advancing reproductive rights since the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.

But many people, especially the poor and vulnerable, still lack access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, including life-saving emergency obstetric care. Women and girls living with fistula are among the most marginalised and neglected, and the persistence of fistula is a grave illustration of serious inequalities and the denial of rights and dignity.

The theme this year, “End fistula, restore women’s dignity”, is both timely and crucial. As the Millennium Development Goals draw to a close and the world shapes a new development agenda, we have an opportunity to put the rights and dignity of women and girls – at the heart of a people-centred, equity-driven, rights-based agenda. Only then can we transform the vision of ending preventable maternal and newborn death and injuries into reality, and truly bring about the world we want.

The global Campaign to End Fistula, launched in 2003 by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and partners, has catalysed progress towards eliminating fistula and supporting fistula survivors through its three-pronged strategy of prevention, treatment and social reintegration. UNFPA has supported over 57,000 fistula repair surgeries for women and girls in need, and campaign partners have enabled many more to receive treatment.

After a successful surgery, Nasima Nizamuddin from southern Bangladesh, whose husband rejected her and their nine month-old son after she developed fistula, came to the UNFPA-supported Fistula Patients Training and Rehabilitation Centre in Dhaka for her emotional recovery and to acquire skills to make a living and to live a life in dignity.

However, more needs to be done. We estimate that at least two million women live with the condition and 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occur every year. Fortunately, with the right combination of political will, leadership and financial commitment we can end the needless suffering of women and girls. Let us, once and for all, put an end to this assault on women’s and girls’ health and human rights, which steals from them their dignity and destroys the most fundamental of human qualities: hope. Much of the world has already virtually eliminated fistula. It is time to finish the job. Let us all work together to wipe fistula off the map. 

The writer is UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UNFPA