More than 750 victims of vesico vaginal fistula (VVF) have been abandoned by their relatives in Nigeria's northern state of Kaduna, 'Vanguard' daily reported on Thursday, citing medical sources.

VVF, a condition common in underage women who have undergone pregnancy, leaves its victims unable to control passage of urine and faeces. It is widespread in northern Nigeria due to a high preponderance of underage girls being forced into marriage by their families.

Sani Hassan, of the Department of Community Health at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, which takes cares for VVF patients, was reported as saying that many of the patients rejected by their husbands or families had taken up menial jobs in the town and earning, on average, 50 naira (US $0.44) a day.

Another Kaduna story

No fewer than 750 victims of Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF), believed to have been abandoned by their relatives, are now roaming about in Zaria, Sabon-Gari and Mararaban-Jos in Kaduna state, according to a social worker, Alhaji Sani Hassan.

Hassan, who has been involved in rehabilitation of VVF patients for the past 15 years, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Zaria at the weekend, that almost all the patients had taken up menial jobs for survival.

He said that some of the VVF victims were currently working in local food restaurants at Mararaban-Jos and Sabon-Gari areas, washing plates for wages as low as N50 daily.

Hassan, who is a senior staff of the department of community medicine, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, lamented that other VVF patients, who were rejected by their husbands and relatives, had rented houses at Tudun-Wada, living as single parents.

A NAN correspondent in Zaria, who visited a VVF rehabilitation home, built by the authorities of ABUTH, observed that the facilities provided at the centre were being under-utilised, as the inmates of the home had abandoned the place.

A staff of the rehabilitation home, who preferred not to be named, told NAN that the VVF patients were avoiding the home because of the strict rules governing the running of the home.

"Almost all the patients refused to adhere to the 7 p.m. deadline for the closure of the rehabilitation home each day, and they don't want their movements to be restricted," he said.

NAN further observes that the ABUTH VVF rehabilitation home has been provided with social amenities, including home appliances, such as television sets, radio sets, fans and other equipment and machines for the training of the inmates.

This is the type of issues you should be dealing with and forget all those buzz words like "rule of law and free market". Get on your keyboard and tell your crazy jihadists to sort these innocent girls out!

Stick out your fingers and do something about these innocent kids, or don't you have any milk of human kindness?

For petes sake cut out that c**p on emotions. It rings very hollow coming from an indifferent sadist like you.

You expect Bature to do something? He won't since that's what feudalism is all about. He is an elite and for that status to be maintained sacrosanct, there must always be almajiris. Do you expect any of the girls to be bearing surnames like Babangida, Shagari, Abacha, Abubakar, Atiku, etc. Of course not. Their own daughters thanks to Biafran money are shipped off to fancy schools in the West while they use the daughters of the lesser mortals as sports to be defiled by their disgusting loins.

Many of us can't even imagine the sheer hell that this VVF is. You can smell the victim a thousand miles away and the cervix and pelvic girdle are so damaged that the lucky ones who can walk, barely stumble along. Most can't walk as there is no waist left. And with all those rags to staunch the uncontrollable flow of bodily wastes!

"The Biafran won't let his son endure the inhalation of dust raised by your son's car same as he is enduring that raised by your car. Impossible. That's the difference between us and the perpetual government hand-out recipients."

I read you loud and clear. You voice is ogele! I'm typing with my hand on my chest that I am very willing to link Bature and Adamu up with a charity here in the UK that will sort these unfortunate girls out.

That's it my brother. In the whole of Biafra, we are breaking the vicious cycles of poverty in every home. I am going through life easier than my parents did and ditto for all my siblings and that goes for most families that I know. Our children will also have life easier than we are doing, not minding that we are the generation worst hit by these pigs.

And we are not stealing from anyone and just like virtually all the Igbos that I know never beneficiaries of government scholarships (though being multiple laureates). In the end its always better to say that we did it in spite of them rather than that their system kept us down. How many Biafrans know when the FG or even Commonwealth Postgraduate scholarship forms are out? Even when one manages to acquire one, would the Yorubas let it go through the shortlisting process? But in spite of all that ........

Do you see our northern neighbors outside? No, only in the Nigerian missions which is why they are in the sorry states that they are now. In the whole US, a Nigerian cannot get the worthless green booklet. The best they can do for you is give you a travel certificate, or something that sounds like that, same they give to deportees (who have managed to chew and swallow their passports!).

Four Million Women Suffer From VVF, Says Minister
August 28, 2001
Posted to the web August 28, 2001

Jane Ezereonwu
Abuja

EVEN as the country continues to be weighed down by the suffocating grip of the HIV/AIDS scourge, another nerve-chilling report says that about four million Nigerian women suffer from the Visico Vaginal Fistila (VVF)

The latest report by the Minister of Women Affairs and Youth Development, Hajiya Aisha Ismail along side the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Amina Ndalolo, during their assessment of four VVF cases and facilities in the North Western states, indicates that the problem militates against national development.

The staggering four million figure, the minister regretted was 3.2 million above the earlier reported 800,000 cases barely a year ago.

Specifically, the Minister of Women Affairs noted, "it is alarming that the scourge and dimension of VVF has affected over four million unreported young girls. Before this time, only 800,000 Nigerians were known to have been afflicted with the endemic".

The tour, which took the ministers to four states: Kano, Katsina, Kebbi and Zamfara, however exposed the high incidence of the disease there.

Ismail described the high rate of VVF cases especially in the Northern part of the country as embarrassing, adding: "to have four million young girls between the ages of 14 and 25, so thoroughly destroyed is not only a health burden, but a social and economic burden".

While describing the scourge as the predicament of the poor who have no access to good medical facilities and who see early marriage as a possible way out of the economic woods, Hajiya Ismail assured that her ministry would rehabilitate and empower the patients to make them more useful to themselves and the society.

Also speaking, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Amina Ndalolo said the Federal Government has set a four-year target for the treatment and rehabilitation of all the reported cases of VVF in the country.

Ndalolo described the war on VVF as multi-sectoral, to be fought at all fronts, adding: "the Federal Government had already engaged the service of a consultant surgeon on VVF to train doctors and nurses in the treatment of the endemic."

While stressing the government's determination to fight the scourge, the minister appealed to the state governments to treat VVF patients free of charge, as most of them can hardly fend for themselves after being abandoned by their husbands and families.