Sexual violence causes fistula

By: Unknown on 12:50 AM

Tanzania Commission for AIDS (Tacaids)

Tanzanian medical experts have made a breakthrough in the treatment of fistula by discovering that sexual violence is the main source of the disease that predominantly affect females under 18. 

 

They say preventive measures include refrains from sexual violence, early marriages and pregnancies, since the violence in question implies physical intercourse with an underage whose reproductive system is not developed enough for delivery. 

 

Fistula is a medical condition in which a hole develops between either the rectum or vagina or between the bladder and vagina after severe or failed childbirth in the absence of adequate medical care, say the experts.

 

Dr Aroldia Mulokozi,  Policy, Planning and Research Officer with Tanzania Commission for AIDS (Tacaids) said that fistula affects mostly  female under 18 years of age who are involved in early sexual relationship or get married and deliver in their early teens. 

 

She cited Dodoma, Lindi, Mara, Shinyanga, Tabora and Morogoro where about 5-7 percent of young girls get married at the age of 15 as the leading regions in fistula. 

 

Dr Mulokozi also said  pregnant teenage girls in rural areas are more at risk of catching fistula compared to their urban peers as they are bound to either delays in reaching the far away health centres or to failure accessing the health. 

 

In most cases these girls belong to poor families who apparently get married to families of the same social status and with similar lifestyle of indifference to health condition, she said. 

 

Early marriages are therefore associated to poverty as 18 percent of girls from poor families are likely get married at early ages compared to 7 percent of their peers from rich families.

 

She said since their reproductive systems are not matured enough for delivery  they experience painful friction in their bladders especially when delivering heavier babies.

 

As a result of friction, according to her, the bladder lacks blood which in the long run damages the bladder giving rise to fistula. 

 

Medical findings also state that fistula is considered a disease of poverty because it mostly occurs to women in poor countries with little health facilities. 

 

Early pregnancies at the age of 15 in rural areas where poverty is rampant is six folds that of the rich urban, while teenage pregnancies are roughly 10 times higher than those of  the urban girls.

 

TACAIDS also  believes that such marriages are associated with lower level of education as 58 percent of girls aged between 15 and 24 who were married when they were 15 are neither able to read nor write as opposed to 12 percent of unmarried peers.

 

Meanwhile, commenting on general HIV/Aids status among youth in the country during the workshop on the recent survey on the disease’s  key indicators for youth mid this week in Dar es Salaam, Dr Mulokozi said Dar es Salaam had the highest number of infected youth while Pemba Island in Zanzibar archipelago has the lowest.