Support for Girls
The life of girls in sub-Saharan Africa is strongly shaped while they are still young. In many developing countries, girls are married at the age of 14 and shortly afterwards they already expect their first child. More then 14 million girls between 15 and 19 years of age give birth every year (more >). Teenage pregnancies do not only force them to quit school but also brings along great health hazards: Teenage girls have a doubled risk to die during pregnancy or birth.
With our development projects and advocacy work, DSW increases awareness in Europe and in Africa itself and advocates for educational opportunities. Our objective is to break through the circuit of unwanted pregnancy, school dropouts, unemployment and poverty. We aim to empower women and adolescents to live a healthy and self-chosen life.
Obstetric Fistula
Child marriage, early pregnancy and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) are among the reasons for about two million women suffering from obstetric fistula. Every year, some 100,000 new cases occur - mostly in developing countries.
Obstetric fistulas are a severe obstetric injury which particularly affects young women whose body is not yet prepared to give birth. Often, patients are only 13 or 14 years old when they become pregnant for the first time. At this age, the pelvis is still very small, which can easily lead to complications. The child is often stillborn, and the young woman suffers serious internal injuries. But there are also prenatal complications: during prolonged obstructed labor, the continuous pressure of the head of the baby against the tissue in the lower abdomen cuts off the blood supply and part of the tissue dies. This results in holes between the vagina, the bladder and the bowel - obstetric fistulas. As a consequence, affected women become unable to control their excretions.
Another consequence is social ostracism: because of their smell of urine and bowel content, the women are cast out of society and often hidden in sheds at the edge of the village. Besides ignorance, there is the misbelief that the blame for their misery lies with the women themselves.
At the same time, most obstetric fistulas can be closed by means of a simple surgical intervention with a high success rate: 90 per cent of obstetric fistulas can be cured. However, in most developing countries public hospitals lack skilled staff and the necessary medical equipment to conduct such surgery.
In addition to medical care, information is therefore vital: girls and young women should not become pregnant when they are teenagers, but only when their bodies are fully developed. To prevent this, they need access to information and contraception to be able to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies. But also their parents and society at large need to be included in prevention work: to sustainably prevent obstetric fistulas from occurring, women must be empowered and child marriage abolished.
