Obstetric Fistula: The Challenge to Human Rights
International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Vol. 87, pp. 72-77, 2004
7 Pages Posted: 15 Nov 2006
Abstract
Obstetric fistula can be explained to result from different causes. These holes in the tissue wall between the vagina and bladder and/or rectum are most prevalent in resource-poor countries, attributable to prolonged obstructed labour and absent or inaccessible remedial prenatal services. Obstructed labour is often due to small pelvic size, resulting from women's youth and premature childbearing and/or malnutrition. Poverty at national health-service and family levels often predisposes pregnant populations to suffer high rates of fistula. Global estimates showing up to 100,000 new cases each year and 2 million affected girls and women are probably gross underestimates. Fistula devastates lives of sufferers, who are often expelled by husbands and become isolated from their families and communities. Failures of states to provide prenatal preventive care (including medically indicated cesarean deliveries) and timely fistula repair violate women's internationally recognized human rights, especially to healthcare in general and reproductive healthcare in particular.
Keywords: Fistula, Obstetric fistula, Human Rights, Women's human rights
JEL Classification: I31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation